Running with the Devil

two

"Hawke's out of jail."

Eoin doesn't mean to say it. He has an agreement with himself: keep his life before Hawke's incarceration separate from his life after. Hawke already found his way into so many facets of Eoin's life. Where Hawke ends and Eoin begins blurs together so badly it's hard to tell the difference.

Atticus taps the side of their mug with their nails, makes a humming noise low in their throat. As far as sponsors go, Atticus might be the better of the bunch. Calm and quiet, twenty years clean and with the demeanor of an older sibling. Eoin likes them; likes that, even when Eoin's been a spoiled brat, when he was six weeks sober after Hawke and all he wanted was a high, that Atticus took everything Eoin threw at them with more dignity than Eoin's had in his entire life. "Hawke?"

With a sigh, Eoin shoves his plate away. "I wasn't going to say anything." He wasn't. Sometimes, Atticus' presence is enough—just knowing that the itch for a high, one that's ever present if a little dulled, can be overcome, again and again and again... it can be enough. Real, physical proof that Eoin's not destined to repeat himself.

"Guessing this has something to do with your addiction," Atticus says, lifting their mug. They raise an eyebrow, and Eoin watches the wings of the butterfly inked into Atticus' skin fold into the creases of their forehead. "Or you wouldn't be here, right?"

He needs to talk about it. Hawke makes Eoin's skin crawl, and he's never quite been able to work out if that's a good or a bad thing. If it's something he likes, or if it's just a side effect of being friends with the guy. If 'friends' is an applicable term. Eoin's not sure what kind of relationship it is, but there's no way it can be a partnership.*

"He got me into it," Eoin says. "Heroin. And, it was fine, at first, but." His hands shake. Talking about it never gets easier, for Eoin. The addiction is a mark on an otherwise perfect track record, and instead of the achievements he's made over the years, people will only ever look at him and see 'addict'. "The pills were the easy part."

"Usually are." Atticus pours another cup of coffee, drinks it black. "You all right?"

"Hawke's a user. Always will be. His entire motto is, if he's the only one he's hurting, why should someone try to stop him?" It's not just track marks marring Hawke's skin. He's more than a little reckless, he takes his anger out on himself, and he laughs it off. Eoin doesn't know what made him like this, but he's not sure he wants to find out. Trauma, maybe, but Eoin was a happy little fucker, as a kid, and look where that led him. "And I'm a fucking pushover, so."

"You're too hard on yourself." Atticus' nails tap the counter in a rhythm to match the music over the speakers. They're a bright red, today, their nails. "You're a year sober, right?"

Fitting that he'd get his chip right before Hawke gets out. Still, Eoin nods. Feels the comforting weight of the coin in his pocket, and focuses on it like a lifeline.

As a kid, Eoin never had anxiety, either. That's something he can thank Hawke for, too. The way reality crushes him, these days, pushes him into the dirt. Eoin's stable, financially, but in every other aspect, his life feels like a living nightmare he can't escape. Like someone watches his every move.

"Doesn't mean shit, though. Just takes one fuckup and everything I worked so fucking hard for is over."

And it's true. It's that easy. In the year he's been on-and-off going to NA meetings, Eoin has seen countless people, people that have been sober for years, fall off the wagon. It's too easy, and every other meeting Eoin remembers Hawke's laughter at the mere notion of Narcotics Anonymous. At the idea of getting clean. He still hasn't said as much to Hawke about it. He's embarrassed. He's doing something good for himself, and he's fucking embarrassed.