But, after reading over this enough times that I have it memorized, editing it around a thousand different times, I think I've finally decided to post it up and let the masses have a go at it :) I plan on making this into a short little anthology type series, going through each letter of the alphabet and making the theme of each story correspond to whatever the one-word title is.
I'm sorry if that isn't making much sense, but my mind is still a little foggy from working all night and I've only just woken up a little bit ago
The first piece in this set is title A is for Addicts. A story of two males struggling with their own addictions to substances and to each other. With that short blurb being said, please enjoy and leave your feedback, comments and other thoughts in the comments.
Triggering content includes: mentions of heavy drug use.
His head fit perfectly into the crook of the younger man’s neck, nose pressing against soft skin as he breathed in that familiar scent.This was his heaven.There was nowhere in the entire world he’d rather be than in this spot.“I love you.” The words fell naturally from his lips, without even a moment of hesitation or the uncaring tone they usually carried. This was something more, one of those rare times when it actually held meaning.He didn’t have to look up at the other to know exactly what he was doing, the expression that was written plainly on his face, because he’d seen it before--even though it was becoming more rare lately. It was simple, it was a smile. But not just any smile, it was Hunter’s smile.“I--”SLAM!The door closed loudly, jolting the man from his slumber and returning him to reality with a bit of a groan. His eyes opened to catch the younger male stumbling into the apartment and fumbling to get his shoes off near the door.“Mother fucking--come off.” Hunter cursed at his feet and after a few more moments of struggling, finally had the sneakers off, turning on his heels only to be met by the figure of Colin, sitting straight up on the couch.“Where have you been?” Colin’s hand rubbed over his face briefly before grabbing for his phone, checking the time. It didn’t matter though, he was far too groggy to make out the numbers that lit up the small touchscreen. “Do you even know what time it is?”While he might not have known the correct time, Hunter knew it was well into four in the morning; most of the clubs in their part of town had to close at around two and after parties usually wrapped up a few hours after that, so four was a good assumption, he thought. “I was out,” he shrugged, slipping his jacket off and tossing it onto the arm of the couch as he stumbled over to it.Colin instantly wished he would’ve pretended to be asleep again. When the other was like this, too strung out on whatever he’d taken that evening, the older male didn’t even want to be around him. Much less conscious enough to try and make conversation. But he didn’t bother to move as Hunter ended up falling on top of him, Colin having to wiggle himself into a completely new position in order to fit on the small cushions of the couch with the other.“Were you waiting up for me?” Hunter’s words now came out in a bit of a coo, arms wrapping around Colin’s neck, pressing their foreheads together. Hunter’s thick lower lip was merely centimeters away from the older male’s. “Did you miss me?”“Get off me. You’re fucking high.” The older male grumbled, pushing his arms from around him and trying to shove him away, though failing to even get him to budge. They might’ve been around the same height, but Hunter was a much bigger build than he was. Hell, anyone was a much bigger build than he was, to be honest. “What’re you on tonight? E? K? The whole fucking alphabet?”Despite being forced to let go of his hold, Hunter laughed loudly, falling back onto the pillow, dark hair contrasting against the white of the pillow case. “C’mon... don’t be like that.” He turned to look up at the older, tongue swiping over his lips as his hand started to trail his shirt upwards.No.That combination wasn’t working this evening. Colin had let it go too many times before. His boyfriend would come home completely strung out and despite the fact that he would tell himself not to do it, he would end up giving in to everything that Hunter wanted. It was a cycle and Colin couldn’t manage to find a way out.If he even wanted out of it.“I’m not fucking you, Hunter.” He spat out, turning his head to break the eye contact they previously had, knowing that he had such a weakness for the way the man looked at him. “You should’ve went home with someone else for that shit.”He didn’t mean that. God, he didn’t mean that.The last thing he wanted was for Hunter to go running off to someone else, despite how much better off he knew he’d be if he just found someone else and moved on with his life, he couldn’t bring himself to leave the other.Sometimes he wondered if maybe he was confusing love with addiction.“Whatever.” His entire demeanor changed in the blink of an eye and in an instant Hunter was pushing himself off of the couch and into a standing position, wobbly steps leading him toward the shower, the phone already to his ear by the time he was pushing open the bathroom door.Colin knew he wouldn’t leave, this was all just some little show to purposely piss him off, while allowing Hunter to get his rocks off at the same time. It was Hunter’s ego being... in short, Hunter’s ego. He knew it would only last for as long as he allowed it to, knowing full well that he could walk to the door, open it (it’d be unlocked, the lock had been broken on it long ago during some fight that the pair had. The memory was fuzzy to him now, like most all of his memories.) and the man on the other side of it would end that phone call in that instant.This would, of course, force Colin into having to sleep with the other and he wasn’t the type to back down from something he’d already said. He was a man of his word.“Shit... You can do that? You gonna show me next time, right?” Hunter’s words, though only a whisper, seemed to echo in the silent apartment, catching Colin’s attention and causing him to clench his eyes closed tightly.That wasn’t true.His own voice rang loudly in his head, attempting to block out the sound of his boyfriend in the other room.He’s lying to them.He knew how Hunter was, he was a master of words--more importantly a master of telling words that weren’t the truth. The younger male was a liar if there ever was one, but there had always been something about the way he carried himself and his presence that made him believable all the time.Colin was sure it was that presence that made him fall for the man in the first place.He could hear him, whispering all those same things that he should’ve been saying to Colin right now. And in his mind he could see him; seated on the bathroom floor, back pressed against the door, pants around his ankles and his hand wrapped tightly around his length, stroking himself.Hunter was left handed, but he used his right hand to jerk off. It was bright as day in Colin’s mind.Suddenly his hand was in his pocket, fingers wiggling around in the pocket full of small capsules, digits wrapping around different ones and feeling at their different indentations, blindly identifying the ones that he wanted. This had become such a routine for him that he’d long since memorized how each and every pill felt against his fingers; their shape, texture, even the tiny letters that were etched into them.By now, he could hear Hunter softly moaning, or was that still in his mind? No matter, it was still more than he wanted to hear and instantly he was dry swallowing down three tiny blue pills he’d fished out from the depths of his pocket.Colin’s head hit the pillow shortly after, hands coming up to cover his ears, blocking out any more of the sounds that were coming from the bathroom where Hunter was and allowing his eyes to flutter closed, mind slipping back to the drug-induced dream world he’d just been in, hoping he’d find the other Hunter there.
The sunlight was blinding as it found a way to sneak past the curtains that Hunter had just flung open. “You fell asleep on the couch again.” He mumbled to the man that was still lying there, groggily looking around the room in an attempt to get his bearings back. Waking up from these drug-induced sleeps was always a difficult task for Colin.“You didn’t wake me up to move me?” Colin’s question fell on deaf ears, Hunter having already made his way to the kitchen to start up breakfast. The older man couldn’t honestly remember the last time he’d fell asleep in the bed with his boyfriend. The times seemed too few and far between, it probably would’ve actually felt awkward to be curled up with Hunter in the same bed.At least while he was sober.Hunter seemed to always be a lot more affectionate when drugs were flowing through his system and Colin had something of a love/hate relationship with it. On the one hand, he could pretend that they were like every other couple they knew; completely in love with one another, the way they had been when they’d first met.On the other hand, Colin knew that it would all fade soon enough and Hunter would return to the cold person that he’d somehow become. He didn’t know what was more heartbreaking.“Are you going to eat? I’ve got a class in about an hour, so I’m gonna go soon.” Hunter explained his day, pulling himself out a bowl and filling it with both milk and cereal.He honestly had no intentions of going to class, he hadn’t been to class more than 4 times this entire year, it was a miracle that he was even still enrolled at the university. His family had money and influence, though, and if Hunter told them that he wanted to keep going, then they’d keep paying and ‘putting in a word with the right people’. He wasn’t a stupid kid by any means and when he was actually trying in school he was in the top of his class.Now, though, he was just some tweaked out, failing art student. What Colin always considered to be talent going to waste. While Hunter still allowed 95% of his life to be consumed by art (their apartment was full of sketchpads and art supplies everywhere you looked), he was in no way putting his skills to use how they should’ve been.He should’ve been out painting murals on buildings or selling all the thousands of pieces that were haphazardly tossed about the apartment.Colin was no better, of course, he was just some--literally--starving model. He wasn’t a big name, by any means, but he had enough photoshoots and gigs to get by at the end of every month when the landlord came knocking--mostly online boutiques or local shops who wanted him to pose for some flyer they planned on making for an upcoming sale. He honestly would’ve had a whole lot more if most of his money didn’t end up getting poured into the pills that he continuously swallowed down.“No, I’m not hungry.” This was no surprise. Colin ate maybe once a day and often said he didn’t want to eat more than 500 calories. It was one of Hunter’s biggest pet peeves to watch the older man sit around and count up the amount of calories he’d taken in the whole day so he could figure out just how many diet pills he could safely take.Colin had overdosed on the medication one too many times than he’d like to remember and was a bit more careful now with them. The doctors warning him that he’d have to go to a real rehabilitation center if he ended up there again. Of all the many things Colin feared, actually having to spend time in rehab was one. Rehab was for people who had a problem, an addiction and coming to terms with the fact that he’d somehow turned into one of those people terrified him.They quickly changed to a new primary doctor, Colin swearing up and down that the previous one didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. Hunter simply went along with it, he’d long since stopped caring about his boyfriend and the addiction he never wanted to admit to having."Are you really going to class today?" Colin questioned, digging through the pocket of his pajama pants and eventually pulling out a handful of pills, eyes focused on the tiny capsules in search of which ones he wanted to take. He often felt shamed by Hunter when he did this and always tried to do it when Hunter was distracted, or simply not looking in his direction. "Or are you just saying that and you're really going to get high with your friends?" His words were bitter, knowing very well that his boyfriend (the more Colin thought about it, the more loose of a term it was becoming between the two of them.) wouldn't be making it to any classes.And maybe Colin was slightly hurt by the fact he'd choose drugs over spending time with him. When was the last time they'd even hung out together?Hunter was too occupied in both his bowl of cereal, but more importantly a text message on his phone to even bother with looking up at the older male, simply scarfing down the rest of his breakfast before picking his bookbag off the floor and flinging it over his shoulder. "What do you think? You're a smart kid, Colin, you'll figure it out." His eyes rolled back into his head as he bent down to stuff his feet into his Nike's and messily tie the laces together. One foot and then the next in complete silence."Why don't you stay with me today? We could go out..." The elder spoke softly, fingers wrapped tightly around his handful of pills.And he should've expected the look Hunter gave him; a skeptical raise of a brow tossed over his shoulder as he shook his head, not bothering to actually answer the other as he pulled his hoodie on and left the apartment, the sound of his heavy footsteps moving down the stairs echoing in the silence Colin was left in.
