Just a Junkie Preaching to the Choir
Who: Jilly Coppercorn tehoniongirl and Billy need_to_rule_it
What: Jilly makes a choice and Billy's there to pick up the pieces
When: Sunday night
Where: Jilly’s room
Rating: PG-13 for direct references to drugs and drug paraphernalia
When you don’t want to see people, there’s a great deal of time that opens up. As the week had continued, Jilly had been carefully staying out of sight as much as possible, trying to escape the constant barrage of worried looks and unfamiliar voices. And she’d been reading. First the entries from her older self and then all throughout, scanning months of arrivals, departures, and all the dramas in between.
No one had to tell her about the wishing. She’d figured it out on her own after the second day. At first she’d just tested it with small things. Food. Clothes. Favorite books from a barely remembered childhood…. The drugs hadn’t been until the third day.
~~~
She couldn’t remember the time before her arrival at the castle. Not clearly. It was all lost in a fog of distant highs and devastating lows. Lows that would shake you from the core until, desperate, you’d do anything to make them go away. She’d freed herself from Rob and his string of girls only to continue living the same damn way. She could hate what she’d become but, however much she wanted to, she couldn’t change it. She wasn’t strong enough.
Only then she woke up here, and all of that was gone. No pimps. No shakes. No itch. No anything. For some reason this castle had dragged her out of the shit hole that was her life and dumped her into limbo without any of the weights that had been holding her down. She knew she should be overjoyed. Thrilled. She’d wanted out and now, here she was, clean and free and far, far away. It should have been enough.
~~~
She kept the syringe on her bathroom counter. The spoon. The lighter. The little bag of brown. They were all just sitting, waiting. She’d look at them when she came back from her forays to the kitchen, picking them up, turning them over… and then put them back, unused. She tried to forget them, regretting that she’d even wished them up in the first place, but then the whispers started.
~~~
It was easier, being in this strange place, before she realized that anyone knew her. It’s not that she’d always believed magic. But she’d always hoped in it. Looked for it. Finding it was real? She could handle that.
What she couldn’t handle were the expectations. Everyone here expected her to be someone she wasn’t. Someone who, in her mind, she could never be. She didn’t understand. She’d found the few brief mentions her older self had made, hidden behind private filters. Her brother. The priest. The baby sister she’d left behind (and the guilt that came with that. When was the last time she’d even thought about her? Obviously not recently enough). But, despite the proof, she couldn’t understand how anyone could remember those things and be so. Fucking. Happy. And, worse, she knew she’d never feel that.
Oh, obviously she did later. Somehow. As if some fairy godmother came and waved all the problems away with a magic wand. But she’d read enough in the journals to understand. She, teenage Jilly, was just a loss. She had a week. Nothing more. She wouldn’t gain any wonderful insights. She wouldn’t overcome her past and transform into something better. She just had to live with everyone thinking she would, while still dealing with the same, old, fucking problems that her dear older self had left behind.
She wasn’t real.
She wasn’t real. She hadn’t escaped anything. And, in a few days, she’d be going back to…what? She didn’t know. Her older self hadn’t talked about it. Hadn’t even written a private note to explain how she’d managed to leave it all behind.
She had 7 days. Less now. And all this would disappear.
Fuck.
~~~
It’s Sunday. Seven days. She’s counted them down, little tallies in the journal next to scribbled out drawings as she attempted to live this lie. She can’t help wondering how it will end. Will she disappear at midnight? Like Cinderella in reverse, the tattered rags disappearing with the chime of bells, turning into the princess she should have been?
She’s stripped down to just her jeans and a tank top. It’s the most form fitting thing she’s worn all week, but she needed her arms free. The band tied around her upper arm constricts the blood flow and makes the black and blue bruises in the crook of her arm stand out more than ever, dark track marks left over from what came before.
She’s done this so many times before, but her hands are shaking as she heats the heroin in the spoon, watching the powder melt into a brown pool of water and dope. Filtering, filling the syringe, it’s all she can do to keep from spilling as she goes through the motions.
She wanted so bad to be clean. To be out. But what was the point? In… an hour? Two hours?... she’d stop existing. Or worse, be back where she came from. And all those people who’d spent the week looking for someone else in her face would get their precious friend back. It’s her they wanted anyway… what did it matter what she did now? Tapping her arm, she watches the vein rise, blue against pale skin. The pinch as the tip of the needle slides in is nothing. A familiar pain that will dull as soon as she presses down on the syringe.
Her thumb is poised, ready, and she can feel the warmth of the liquid through the thin plastic. All it would take is a tiny bit of pressure and she can escape. For a few hours she can forget that, really, a few hours is all she has left.
…there’s a clatter as the syringe falls to the floor, rolling against tile until it bumps against the bathtub, still filled with brown. Jilly’s shaking violently. As bad as any withdrawal. Except this time, it’s not the drugs breaking her apart. There’s a shuddering gasp as she inhales, and her head drops into her hands.
For the first time since this week began, she lets herself cry.
[ooc: omg....that got a lot longer than I thought it would. Sorry, guys;;]
What: Jilly makes a choice and Billy's there to pick up the pieces
When: Sunday night
Where: Jilly’s room
Rating: PG-13 for direct references to drugs and drug paraphernalia
When you don’t want to see people, there’s a great deal of time that opens up. As the week had continued, Jilly had been carefully staying out of sight as much as possible, trying to escape the constant barrage of worried looks and unfamiliar voices. And she’d been reading. First the entries from her older self and then all throughout, scanning months of arrivals, departures, and all the dramas in between.
No one had to tell her about the wishing. She’d figured it out on her own after the second day. At first she’d just tested it with small things. Food. Clothes. Favorite books from a barely remembered childhood…. The drugs hadn’t been until the third day.
~~~
She couldn’t remember the time before her arrival at the castle. Not clearly. It was all lost in a fog of distant highs and devastating lows. Lows that would shake you from the core until, desperate, you’d do anything to make them go away. She’d freed herself from Rob and his string of girls only to continue living the same damn way. She could hate what she’d become but, however much she wanted to, she couldn’t change it. She wasn’t strong enough.
Only then she woke up here, and all of that was gone. No pimps. No shakes. No itch. No anything. For some reason this castle had dragged her out of the shit hole that was her life and dumped her into limbo without any of the weights that had been holding her down. She knew she should be overjoyed. Thrilled. She’d wanted out and now, here she was, clean and free and far, far away. It should have been enough.
~~~
She kept the syringe on her bathroom counter. The spoon. The lighter. The little bag of brown. They were all just sitting, waiting. She’d look at them when she came back from her forays to the kitchen, picking them up, turning them over… and then put them back, unused. She tried to forget them, regretting that she’d even wished them up in the first place, but then the whispers started.
~~~
It was easier, being in this strange place, before she realized that anyone knew her. It’s not that she’d always believed magic. But she’d always hoped in it. Looked for it. Finding it was real? She could handle that.
What she couldn’t handle were the expectations. Everyone here expected her to be someone she wasn’t. Someone who, in her mind, she could never be. She didn’t understand. She’d found the few brief mentions her older self had made, hidden behind private filters. Her brother. The priest. The baby sister she’d left behind (and the guilt that came with that. When was the last time she’d even thought about her? Obviously not recently enough). But, despite the proof, she couldn’t understand how anyone could remember those things and be so. Fucking. Happy. And, worse, she knew she’d never feel that.
Oh, obviously she did later. Somehow. As if some fairy godmother came and waved all the problems away with a magic wand. But she’d read enough in the journals to understand. She, teenage Jilly, was just a loss. She had a week. Nothing more. She wouldn’t gain any wonderful insights. She wouldn’t overcome her past and transform into something better. She just had to live with everyone thinking she would, while still dealing with the same, old, fucking problems that her dear older self had left behind.
She wasn’t real.
She wasn’t real. She hadn’t escaped anything. And, in a few days, she’d be going back to…what? She didn’t know. Her older self hadn’t talked about it. Hadn’t even written a private note to explain how she’d managed to leave it all behind.
She had 7 days. Less now. And all this would disappear.
Fuck.
~~~
It’s Sunday. Seven days. She’s counted them down, little tallies in the journal next to scribbled out drawings as she attempted to live this lie. She can’t help wondering how it will end. Will she disappear at midnight? Like Cinderella in reverse, the tattered rags disappearing with the chime of bells, turning into the princess she should have been?
She’s stripped down to just her jeans and a tank top. It’s the most form fitting thing she’s worn all week, but she needed her arms free. The band tied around her upper arm constricts the blood flow and makes the black and blue bruises in the crook of her arm stand out more than ever, dark track marks left over from what came before.
She’s done this so many times before, but her hands are shaking as she heats the heroin in the spoon, watching the powder melt into a brown pool of water and dope. Filtering, filling the syringe, it’s all she can do to keep from spilling as she goes through the motions.
She wanted so bad to be clean. To be out. But what was the point? In… an hour? Two hours?... she’d stop existing. Or worse, be back where she came from. And all those people who’d spent the week looking for someone else in her face would get their precious friend back. It’s her they wanted anyway… what did it matter what she did now? Tapping her arm, she watches the vein rise, blue against pale skin. The pinch as the tip of the needle slides in is nothing. A familiar pain that will dull as soon as she presses down on the syringe.
Her thumb is poised, ready, and she can feel the warmth of the liquid through the thin plastic. All it would take is a tiny bit of pressure and she can escape. For a few hours she can forget that, really, a few hours is all she has left.
…there’s a clatter as the syringe falls to the floor, rolling against tile until it bumps against the bathtub, still filled with brown. Jilly’s shaking violently. As bad as any withdrawal. Except this time, it’s not the drugs breaking her apart. There’s a shuddering gasp as she inhales, and her head drops into her hands.
For the first time since this week began, she lets herself cry.
[ooc: omg....that got a lot longer than I thought it would. Sorry, guys;;]