'Octavia!'
The scream of her sister pierced through the darkness of her mind, abruptly waking her from the trance she was previously in.
'Ali?' Octavia asked groggily, propping herself up on her elbows.
∆∆∆
'You're fucking joking! No way did I sleep through that. Absolutely no way. Not fair. I missed seeing Luther's monkey thing or whatever you called it? This is the worst day of my life.'
'Did you know?'
'That Luther was part bear?' Octavia scoffed. 'No of course not, you think I wouldn't have told you if I knew? Where is he now?'
'I'm not sure, he practically ran away.'
Allison sighed in defeat, her hand over her face.
Octavia plopped down on a velvet couch in the living room, slouched down, still in her clothes from when she 'collapsed'.
'Who were those people?' Vanya asked, her voice unsteady.
'I don't know, but the way Five's been acting lately with his whole eye obsession, makes me think it's probably something to do with him.'
'Five's eye obsession?' Vanya's voice was incredulous.
'It's a long story, that honestly you don't want to hear, but my point is that it's probably his fault.' Octavia continued.
Vanya pressed the ice pack she was holding to her head again, and Allison gave Octavia an almost accusing look.
'You sure you're okay?' Allison directed at Vanya.
Vanya nodded, her tiredness evident.
Octavia put her arm around her sister.
Her eye caught Diego's as he paced behind them, his breaths coming out unevenly.
'What are you still doing here?' He looked at both Vanya and Octavia.
'I'm just trying to help.' Vanya's eyes were dull and lifeless.
'No, you could have been killed.'
Diego's face went dark.
'Or gotten any of us killed. She is a liability.' He said, looking at Allison.
'Diego lay off her, please.' Octavia spoke up, her voice cracking.
'You're not any better, what happened? You pass out again? Overdose again?' He came closer to them.
'Diego stop, she's been clean for months you know that, stop agonising them both and go away.'
'Do you think we should tell her? How would they react? They'd leave us on the side of the street again wouldn't they, Via? Or maybe they'd send us off to rehab, only for you to relapse a day later, and they won't notice until you get so high you can't move?'
Diego sat down on a sofa behind them, head in his hands.
Octavia felt like she'd been punched in the stomach, and her heart ached.
'Allison?' Vanya's soft voice sliced through the fog of Octavia's mind like a knife through butter.
'Look, I think what he's trying to say is that this kind of stuff is dangerous.' Allison took in a deep breath 'You're just-'
'Not like you.' Vanya finished her sentence for her.
She looked at the floor, and got up from the plush seat, walking away from the group.
'Vanya, wait' Octavia stood up too fast to catch up with her sister, and her head began to spin.
Unsteady on her feet as she tried to follow her, her eyes were focused on Vanya, until Diego grabbed her arm.
'Let her go, it's for the best.'
Octavia snatched her arm away from Diego's grasp.
'You didn't have to say all that shit to her, why are you so cruel?'
'Oh please,' Diego rolled his eyes. 'You've said so much worse, even to her.'
'I-I haven't,'
Octavia backed away slowly from her brother.
'Don't try to bullshit me Via.
'I-I haven't I love her I-'
Octavia felt sweat run down the back of her neck.
'I don't remember what-, i don't remember-',
Her sister looked at her with a familiar look in her eyes.
'Allison, I'm a good person, i am-'
She felt that familiar shoot of pain in her head, and her eyes clouded over in her pain.
When they cleared once more, she was left alone.
∆∆∆
'Klaus! Klaus!'
Octavia had been searching all around the Hargreaves's mansion looking for her brother since she was yelled awake that night.
She absent-mindedly scratched the track marks that ran along her inner elbow, but pulled away sharply when she noticed a drop of blood under the fabric of her white shirt.
She hurriedly rolled her sleeve up, revealing scars not just from her drug use, and saw her track marks leaking drops of blood from the constant itching.
Her head was swimming, and when she tried to roll her sleeves back down her hands were shaking so much she could barely do it.
'Klaus!' She yelled his name with more desperation this time.
Every single time this happened.
She would forget about the drugs for a few hours, or think she could go without them for a short while, or perhaps forever, but then the withdrawal would set in before three hours had gone by.
With withdrawal, came the shaking, the vomiting, the sweating, and worst of all the voices.
The voices that never stopped.
The voices of the people of the damned, screaming and yelling at her to help them, drowning out all other noises, yelling at her to harm others,
'kill that man walking past you Octavia, make his blood pour from his eyes',
'Kill your brother, stab him, smother him in his sleep, he can't fight back',
or harm herself,
'Throw yourself in front of that car, no one would miss you',
'no one even knows you're alive, dear, why should you live when I had to die?'.
And then the sweet craving of drugs, which almost simulated the feeling of having it ready to be injected into her veins, it made her remember the sweet euphoria that came with heroin or ecstasy, making her mouth dry with want.
She wanted to vomit.
She opened the front door of the mansion, cold air blasting her immediately, if only it was the same temperature throughout night and day, she wouldn't have goosebumps on her bare legs, barely covered by a short skirt.
God, she looked like a stupid little schoolgirl walking in the dark of the early morning.
She didn't even need to think about where she was going, her legs took her there automatically, she was simply retracing the steps she would take everyday back when she lived in the mansion.
She reached the usual dark section of an abandoned alleyway.
Although she no longer walked the same way, she still visited the alley almost every day in 'normal' circumstances.
'Graves!' She whispered into the darkness.
No answer.
'Graves!'
She heard rummaging coming from behind her, and just before she turned around, a man grabbed her shoulders.
'Boo.'
'Jesus.'
The man who had jumped out of the dumpster behind her was a drug dealer known as 'Graverobber', why he was called that, Octavia had no idea, he didn't rob graves, he was a drug dealer and had never expressed an interest in graveyards.
She had once asked, but he had just shrugged, seemingly not even knowing himself.
Octavia and Graverobber went way back, in fact she was the only one allowed to call him 'Graves' and he was the only one, aside from Klaus, allowed to call her 'Octo'.
She had been buying from him (at least the less hard stuff) since she was fourteen and he was seventeen, and had been fucking him since she was eighteen (he was ever the gentleman and waited until she was legal) and he was twenty-one.
'Long time no see, how's my favourite client?'
His husky voice rang inside her ears.
'I assume you're here to talk and no other reason?'
'Oh you know me too well Graves, I am sorry to disappoint.' Octavia replied as she fiddled with one of Graverobber's coloured hair wraps, twisting it around her fingers.
'I missed you, my little junkie, I had no one to braid my hair, my other clients refuse to braid the beads in after sex, they just want to "take their drugs and leave."'
He did finger quotes.
Octavia, of course, knew this was a lie, Graverobber never traded sex for drugs, even for her, as she well knew after begging for it many times when out of money.
Their sex was purely recreational.
Sometimes, being with Graverobber lifted her spirits so much she felt as if she would never need drugs again, but then, of course, she would walk out of the conversation and the withdrawal and cravings would hit her like a truck.
'You didn't go to rehab again did you? You know I don't sell to people from rehab, only you that one time because you lied and said Ben came back from the dead and that's why you were gone.'
Octavia giggled.
'No, I've just been celebrating my fathers death, Graves. Now, as much as I love chatting with you, can we skip to the part we both enjoy?'
Graverobber smirked and rummaged in the surprisingly clean dumpster until he found his bag filled with drug supplies.
He pulled out a clean syringe, some ecstasy, heroin and a large amount of cocaine, which was her usual 'order', and handed it to Octavia.
She handed him the money, which was a lot, you wouldn't think it, but Graverobber always had the purest stuff so his drugs were expensive even with the 'friend' discount.
She put her drugs away safely, except for the heroin-filled needle.
She handed it to Graverobber.
'Would you please do the honours?'
Octavia said, a smirk dancing across her lips.
He grinned back at her, taking the needle and pushing her against the wall in a surprisingly gentle way for the amount of lust showing in his eyes.
He plunged the needle into her skin, and she felt the liquid course through her veins until it reached her brain, her pupils blown wide and she moaned in pleasure, rubbing her thighs together in anticipation.
Graverobber had already pulled his pants around his lower thighs and was lining himself up for her.
He kissed her neck, moving further and further down until he was sucking on her breast through her shirt, his spit soaking through it to reveal her bare nipples.
He suddenly thrust himself into her, and they both moaned in sync.
Octavia gripped her hands in his hair, pulling it, enjoying the moan that came from deep inside his throat.
'God...'
Graverobber was kissing and gently biting her collarbones, moving his way up towards her neck.
He took his hands away from her back, and moved one of them to her tits, and the other to squeeze her throat, knocking her head against the brick wall behind her.
He squeezed just tight enough that her vision grew dots, but Octavia's eyes clouded over, and it was no longer Graverobber fucking her like he had done so many times before, but the man who had raped her nights earlier, while she was barely able to comprehend what was happening, her head banging against a different brick wall.
Grave mistaking her sudden jerky movements and hitched breathing for arousel, thrusted faster, sending a jolt of pleasure down Octavia's spine bringing her back down into the present.
He took his hand away from her throat and moved it to the back of her head.
She felt wetness on her cheeks and realised she was crying.
'Graverobber...'
As much of a pervert as Graverobber was, degradation was never really his forte, so it was always better to put words in his mouth than to ask him to freestyle.
He grunted in response.
'Tell me I'm a drug addicted whore, tell me this is all I'll ever be good for. Tell me I'm worthless.'
Graverobber's thrusts stuttered, and he looked down at her, a mixture of confusion and worry evident on his face.
'Just fucking say it!' She snapped, bucking her hips into him, forcing a groan to spill from his lips
Although you could discredit many things about Graverobber, the one thing you couldn't was his acting ability.
'You're a druggie whore, all you'll ever be good for is a quick fuck, you'll never be worth anything to anybody.'
If she didn't know him so well she would have believed he really meant it.
Their chorus of moans filled the dark alley, and Octavia could feel fresh tears running down her cheeks.
will i write more? maybe. who knows. but i actually really enjoyed writing this chapter, and i'm pretty proud of it! thank you all so much for reading!