Holy crap.
Title: The Itch
Summary: In the end, all addictions are the same.
Fandom: Original
Word Count: 1805 (!!!!!)
Rating/Warnings: R; drug use, prostitution
Pairing: Roshan/the doctor
A/N: For fictionhaven's September challenge, addiction. Welcome to the story that ate my brain! Maybe now I can get some actual work done, instead of stressing and slaving over this. Many thanks to raineesue, gunstreet_girl and shadowenmagic for beta-reading.
The druggists were starting to get suspicious.
His elderly aunt, dying miserably in intolerable pain, had served his purposes thus far, but whispers were starting to spread. Some said he was keeping her strung out to keep his inheritance assured. In his more lucid moments, he found it funny. It was so ridiculously déclassé that none of them had even considered that he was taking it himself. Still, the attention was getting uncomfortable.
On top of that, it wasn’t enough. He was taking more and more every day, but it wasn’t working as well. He needed something better.
So he stole through Whitechapel in the dead of the night, dressed in old clothes so not as to draw some woman’s ire, slinking miserably through the streets to get his supplies. The supplier’s residence- he had to keep calling it that to cover up the foul mental taint of “opium den”- was down a flight from the street, in a building he could never even admit to having heard of. He hated it. The cloying scent of the smoke stayed with him for hours, a silent reminder of his shame.
He didn’t have to hide it. It wasn’t a crime. But it wasn’t something that a respectable man did. It wasn’t something that someone who wanted to be trusted did, especially not an aspiring doctor.
Sequestered back in his flat, he pounded out the opium and lovingly poured the water into it. Now, the hardest part. It would take 24 hours to dissolve properly, then more time to percolate the alcohol. He took the last little stoppered bottle and held it to the light. Not enough. Never enough. He would have to find something to hold him over.
It had been two years since he’d first tasted it. He had just left home, and, all alone in London, he was almost dying of fever. It was beginning to look like he wasn’t going to see the new century. But then, a new doctor came with a little brown bottle that made all his pain melt away.
The next night found him back in Whitechapel. The mixture was so close to completion, but he knew that he wasn’t going to make it until then. Already it was like he was waking, the too-sharp corners of the world coming back into focus. He cursed himself for not just breaking down and smoking the stuff like the rest. But making the tincture himself made him feel like he was still in control; it made him feel at least somewhat like who he was.
And then there was a figure beside him. He started; he must have been too lost in thought to hear. It said nothing, calmly keeping time with his steps even when he sped up to escape it. Even when he was almost running, panting, to get away from it, its step was calm and its breath silent.
Out of breath, he gave up, stopping and turning to face it. It threw back the hood of its cloak, and he glimpsed its face for the first time. It was male? Female? Every time he looked, its features seemed to change. All he could tell was that it was beautiful.
“Do you really think you’re going to find what you need?” it asked him. Its voice was breathtaking, dark and lovely, neither masculine nor feminine.
“Yes,” he told it, but it felt like a lie. It laughed, a sparkling tone that made him feel instantly chastened.
“Go then,” it replied.
It took some moments to tear himself away. Almost forgetful of where he was going, he stumbled off. He was a few streets away before he could shift the feeling the figure had put on him. Shaking his head, he put it down as flight of fancy, another waking dream.
He was starting to itch as he drew nearer to his supplier. He needed the drug badly. When he arrived at his destination, his heart dropped. The windows were shuttered; the door locked; the persistent chatter of the smokers absent. Wildly he fumbled at the latch, but it was for naught. Defeated, he stumbled back up to the street.
“You need something better,” the dark voice whispered into his ear. “It’s not working, is it?” The enchanted, sluggish feeling was falling back onto him.
“I’ll thank you not to make insinuations about my character,” he said, but the words came out weakly. The figure walked around him, sizing him up.
“I have what you want,” it told him. Instantly, the enchantment was gone. The itch, the too-bright feeling of being sober came back to him. His head was throbbing, and he felt as if he was about to vomit. It trailed a hand across his chest. When it was drawn away, his body tried to go with it, unable to resist.
“Please, just give it to me,” he pleaded, suddenly immobile. “I don’t care about the cost.” It laughed, running its hands up to his neck.
“Are you sure? The cost is great,” it said with mock seriousness, surveying his neck carefully and caressing it lovingly.
“Anything, I don’t care; just give it to me,” he panted.
Then there was a pain worse than dying as all the blood left his system, taking the laudanum with it.
-
There was a sharp rapping on his door. Putting aside his paper, he rose and opened. A girl, no more than 19 and wearing too much make-up, stood before him.
“Miss Browne has need of the night doctor,” she said, haughtily. Sighing, he allowed himself to be lead through the streets toward the brothel. Five years ago, he’d have been paralyzed with the fear of being seen. Now that all his respectability had been stripped away, it didn’t matter if the king saw him.
Upstairs, a girl lay writhing on the bed. “A basin of warm water,” he told the chilly Miss Browne, “and clean towels.”
The illness was one he was becoming more and more familiar with. He passed a finger over the wound in her neck. It knit itself back together. The withdrawal must have been interrupted by something. He wet one of the towels and daubed the wound, then bandaged it for show.
“We’ve some Godfrey’s to help her sleep,” the madam said, holding forth a brown bottle with a peeling label. Angrily, he snatched it from her and threw it from the window. It made a tinkling crash on the pavement below.
“Never, do you understand me, never give any of these girls that stuff again,” he said with a snarl. She nodded mutely, confusion written on her face. He turned back to the patient. The color was starting to return to her cheeks, and her breathing became easier.
“She’ll be fine,” he assured her, “but if you send her out again this week, you’ll regret it.” He took a deep breath. “My payment?”
Regaining her cold demeanor, she snapped at one of the girls. Timidly, she sat down on the proffered chair. She barely struggled as he pushed the needle into her arm.
“For research,” he told her unconvincingly as the bottle filled. He removed the needle and bandaged her arm, then stopped the bottle.
Back at his flat, he opened the blood and drank deeply. Roshan appeared beside him. Reluctantly, he offered the bottle, but it was waved off.
“Just ate,” Roshan said, rubbing at a dark red stain. He regarded Roshan with disgust. He was desperate too, but at least he only took from the willing. He set the empty bottle down and rubbed his temple.
“My pretty boy is sad?” the vampire said. “I know things to fix that.”
“Not now,” he replied, pushing Roshan off him.
“I see. The good doctor is too respectable for poor me. I, who gave him his life- oh no, I am too base for him.”
“You tricked me.”
Roshan sighed theatrically. “How many times are we going to have this fight?”
“I was-” he was cut off.
“You were a panting, desperate addict,” the vampire told him, almost spitting the words. For a moment, he could see the cold, soulless creature behind the gilt mask. “You are a panting, desperate addict. You will always be. And no amount of being angry at poor Roshan will change that.”
The enchantment dropped on him so heavily that he felt almost paralyzed. Then Roshan kissed him, and he forgot why he was angry.
-
The new doctor was a godsend. Of course, his credentials were a bit unclear, and there had been some irregularities since his arrival, but no one else seemed to be able to heal the strange wounds that they were seeing in increasing numbers.
He closed the neck of a young man and placed an adhesive bandage over it. After reassuring the confused family, he walked into the hall, headed for his next patient. He didn’t hear the footsteps; he never did, but he had learned to sense the arrival.
“Dr. Powell.” The sound of the too-familiar voice pronouncing his new name grated his ears.
“Can’t you leave well enough alone?”
“Are you still angry at poor Roshan?”
It had been nearly twenty since they had seen each other. The fight they’d been having for the better part of a century had finally worn thin. Roshan had left him in a huff.
“You’re taking more than you need. You didn’t think I’d notice that?” he snapped, ignoring the question. Roshan started to reply, but was cut off.
“You’re not doing it correctly, either. You’re just leaving them wide open, half dead.”
Roshan smirked. “You noticed, didn’t you, my pretty boy? My darling, smart boy.”
“It’s not right, and you know it.”
“They’re only humans,” the vampire said dismissively. “They mean nothing compared to us.”
“They deserve better than you do.”
“You should not talk that way about me, who gave you what you needed.” He could feel the delicious feeling falling back on him. It had been so very long. He wanted to be forgiven for his hard words, to be taken back into that warmth. “I am the only one who can give you what you still need.”
But he’d been down this road before, hadn’t he? He’d been underneath the spell of something for- what had it been? Over ninety years now? The laudanum or Roshan, it was all the same. He’d been someone else’s toy for too long. Even for all those years without Roshan near him, he’d still been able to feel the pull, the itch. But no more.
With the greatest concentration, he pushed the feeling off, and all the world seemed to get brighter. There was a look of mingled confusion and fear in Roshan’s eyes.
“I don’t need you anymore.” He turned and walked away, leaving Roshan wanting.
Summary: In the end, all addictions are the same.
Fandom: Original
Word Count: 1805 (!!!!!)
Rating/Warnings: R; drug use, prostitution
Pairing: Roshan/the doctor
A/N: For fictionhaven's September challenge, addiction. Welcome to the story that ate my brain! Maybe now I can get some actual work done, instead of stressing and slaving over this. Many thanks to raineesue, gunstreet_girl and shadowenmagic for beta-reading.
The druggists were starting to get suspicious.
His elderly aunt, dying miserably in intolerable pain, had served his purposes thus far, but whispers were starting to spread. Some said he was keeping her strung out to keep his inheritance assured. In his more lucid moments, he found it funny. It was so ridiculously déclassé that none of them had even considered that he was taking it himself. Still, the attention was getting uncomfortable.
On top of that, it wasn’t enough. He was taking more and more every day, but it wasn’t working as well. He needed something better.
So he stole through Whitechapel in the dead of the night, dressed in old clothes so not as to draw some woman’s ire, slinking miserably through the streets to get his supplies. The supplier’s residence- he had to keep calling it that to cover up the foul mental taint of “opium den”- was down a flight from the street, in a building he could never even admit to having heard of. He hated it. The cloying scent of the smoke stayed with him for hours, a silent reminder of his shame.
He didn’t have to hide it. It wasn’t a crime. But it wasn’t something that a respectable man did. It wasn’t something that someone who wanted to be trusted did, especially not an aspiring doctor.
Sequestered back in his flat, he pounded out the opium and lovingly poured the water into it. Now, the hardest part. It would take 24 hours to dissolve properly, then more time to percolate the alcohol. He took the last little stoppered bottle and held it to the light. Not enough. Never enough. He would have to find something to hold him over.
It had been two years since he’d first tasted it. He had just left home, and, all alone in London, he was almost dying of fever. It was beginning to look like he wasn’t going to see the new century. But then, a new doctor came with a little brown bottle that made all his pain melt away.
The next night found him back in Whitechapel. The mixture was so close to completion, but he knew that he wasn’t going to make it until then. Already it was like he was waking, the too-sharp corners of the world coming back into focus. He cursed himself for not just breaking down and smoking the stuff like the rest. But making the tincture himself made him feel like he was still in control; it made him feel at least somewhat like who he was.
And then there was a figure beside him. He started; he must have been too lost in thought to hear. It said nothing, calmly keeping time with his steps even when he sped up to escape it. Even when he was almost running, panting, to get away from it, its step was calm and its breath silent.
Out of breath, he gave up, stopping and turning to face it. It threw back the hood of its cloak, and he glimpsed its face for the first time. It was male? Female? Every time he looked, its features seemed to change. All he could tell was that it was beautiful.
“Do you really think you’re going to find what you need?” it asked him. Its voice was breathtaking, dark and lovely, neither masculine nor feminine.
“Yes,” he told it, but it felt like a lie. It laughed, a sparkling tone that made him feel instantly chastened.
“Go then,” it replied.
It took some moments to tear himself away. Almost forgetful of where he was going, he stumbled off. He was a few streets away before he could shift the feeling the figure had put on him. Shaking his head, he put it down as flight of fancy, another waking dream.
He was starting to itch as he drew nearer to his supplier. He needed the drug badly. When he arrived at his destination, his heart dropped. The windows were shuttered; the door locked; the persistent chatter of the smokers absent. Wildly he fumbled at the latch, but it was for naught. Defeated, he stumbled back up to the street.
“You need something better,” the dark voice whispered into his ear. “It’s not working, is it?” The enchanted, sluggish feeling was falling back onto him.
“I’ll thank you not to make insinuations about my character,” he said, but the words came out weakly. The figure walked around him, sizing him up.
“I have what you want,” it told him. Instantly, the enchantment was gone. The itch, the too-bright feeling of being sober came back to him. His head was throbbing, and he felt as if he was about to vomit. It trailed a hand across his chest. When it was drawn away, his body tried to go with it, unable to resist.
“Please, just give it to me,” he pleaded, suddenly immobile. “I don’t care about the cost.” It laughed, running its hands up to his neck.
“Are you sure? The cost is great,” it said with mock seriousness, surveying his neck carefully and caressing it lovingly.
“Anything, I don’t care; just give it to me,” he panted.
Then there was a pain worse than dying as all the blood left his system, taking the laudanum with it.
-
There was a sharp rapping on his door. Putting aside his paper, he rose and opened. A girl, no more than 19 and wearing too much make-up, stood before him.
“Miss Browne has need of the night doctor,” she said, haughtily. Sighing, he allowed himself to be lead through the streets toward the brothel. Five years ago, he’d have been paralyzed with the fear of being seen. Now that all his respectability had been stripped away, it didn’t matter if the king saw him.
Upstairs, a girl lay writhing on the bed. “A basin of warm water,” he told the chilly Miss Browne, “and clean towels.”
The illness was one he was becoming more and more familiar with. He passed a finger over the wound in her neck. It knit itself back together. The withdrawal must have been interrupted by something. He wet one of the towels and daubed the wound, then bandaged it for show.
“We’ve some Godfrey’s to help her sleep,” the madam said, holding forth a brown bottle with a peeling label. Angrily, he snatched it from her and threw it from the window. It made a tinkling crash on the pavement below.
“Never, do you understand me, never give any of these girls that stuff again,” he said with a snarl. She nodded mutely, confusion written on her face. He turned back to the patient. The color was starting to return to her cheeks, and her breathing became easier.
“She’ll be fine,” he assured her, “but if you send her out again this week, you’ll regret it.” He took a deep breath. “My payment?”
Regaining her cold demeanor, she snapped at one of the girls. Timidly, she sat down on the proffered chair. She barely struggled as he pushed the needle into her arm.
“For research,” he told her unconvincingly as the bottle filled. He removed the needle and bandaged her arm, then stopped the bottle.
Back at his flat, he opened the blood and drank deeply. Roshan appeared beside him. Reluctantly, he offered the bottle, but it was waved off.
“Just ate,” Roshan said, rubbing at a dark red stain. He regarded Roshan with disgust. He was desperate too, but at least he only took from the willing. He set the empty bottle down and rubbed his temple.
“My pretty boy is sad?” the vampire said. “I know things to fix that.”
“Not now,” he replied, pushing Roshan off him.
“I see. The good doctor is too respectable for poor me. I, who gave him his life- oh no, I am too base for him.”
“You tricked me.”
Roshan sighed theatrically. “How many times are we going to have this fight?”
“I was-” he was cut off.
“You were a panting, desperate addict,” the vampire told him, almost spitting the words. For a moment, he could see the cold, soulless creature behind the gilt mask. “You are a panting, desperate addict. You will always be. And no amount of being angry at poor Roshan will change that.”
The enchantment dropped on him so heavily that he felt almost paralyzed. Then Roshan kissed him, and he forgot why he was angry.
-
The new doctor was a godsend. Of course, his credentials were a bit unclear, and there had been some irregularities since his arrival, but no one else seemed to be able to heal the strange wounds that they were seeing in increasing numbers.
He closed the neck of a young man and placed an adhesive bandage over it. After reassuring the confused family, he walked into the hall, headed for his next patient. He didn’t hear the footsteps; he never did, but he had learned to sense the arrival.
“Dr. Powell.” The sound of the too-familiar voice pronouncing his new name grated his ears.
“Can’t you leave well enough alone?”
“Are you still angry at poor Roshan?”
It had been nearly twenty since they had seen each other. The fight they’d been having for the better part of a century had finally worn thin. Roshan had left him in a huff.
“You’re taking more than you need. You didn’t think I’d notice that?” he snapped, ignoring the question. Roshan started to reply, but was cut off.
“You’re not doing it correctly, either. You’re just leaving them wide open, half dead.”
Roshan smirked. “You noticed, didn’t you, my pretty boy? My darling, smart boy.”
“It’s not right, and you know it.”
“They’re only humans,” the vampire said dismissively. “They mean nothing compared to us.”
“They deserve better than you do.”
“You should not talk that way about me, who gave you what you needed.” He could feel the delicious feeling falling back on him. It had been so very long. He wanted to be forgiven for his hard words, to be taken back into that warmth. “I am the only one who can give you what you still need.”
But he’d been down this road before, hadn’t he? He’d been underneath the spell of something for- what had it been? Over ninety years now? The laudanum or Roshan, it was all the same. He’d been someone else’s toy for too long. Even for all those years without Roshan near him, he’d still been able to feel the pull, the itch. But no more.
With the greatest concentration, he pushed the feeling off, and all the world seemed to get brighter. There was a look of mingled confusion and fear in Roshan’s eyes.
“I don’t need you anymore.” He turned and walked away, leaving Roshan wanting.