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burninlovebutler · 2 years ago

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30 - It's Not Living // Forever Winter Series

pairing: austin butler x fem!oc | word count: 2.3k

summary: austin copes with the weight of his bad decisions with the help of a new vice. while aspen remains blinded by her feelings and her own addiction, she invites nox over for an in-house visit to help curb austin's withdrawals.

warnings/notes: drug use lol, withdrawals, addiction, shitty/angry austin, yelling, austin spiraling, nox, sad but important for plot, 18+ MDNI

see masterlist for chapter log + all other fics 💫

vibes -> fw playlist❄️

-AUSTIN-

I winced when the bright sunshine burned my freshly opened retinas. “Fuck.” I groaned. Once I had gained some more consciousness, I patted around the bed to find it empty. An immediate feeling of relief, then sadness washed over me at the absence. It made me ponder where I stood with Aspen; having her here constantly and being so… needy was suffocating. But on the other hand, it was comforting not being alone. God knows where I’d be without company through this down spiral. It’s not like it was the worst company you could have – she was kind, soft, caring, funny – and the fun we had. Maybe it was just the aftershock from her ‘I love you’ slip.

Suddenly, there was a hunger pain in my stomach and it crept up my ribcage - it climbed up each rib like a ladder until it was curled up in my throat. It wasn’t hunger for food but something else. I pulled myself to the edge of the bed, letting my feet hit the floor and shaking away the gnawing feeling. My nose suddenly scrunched at a familiar sweet scent filling the room. Using both hands to push myself off the mattress, I weakly made my way towards the kitchen.

The minute I rounded the corner I stopped in my tracks. There was Elsie, fluttering around my kitchen. I watched her wavy brown locks bounce as she wiggled a pan then tossed it upwards to flip a pancake in the air.

Pancakes – I knew that I knew that scent, it smelt like home. While having Elsie in my kitchen after everything was jarring, it was also greatly comforting. Maybe this would make everything okay, maybe pancakes could fix this too; they always fixed everything before.

“Els–“ I began but then Aspen abruptly swung the front door open.

“Aspen.” I sighed out, slightly annoyed and anxious.

She went to the counter and dropped a pile of mail onto the marble. She knitted her brows at my tone, “Yes?”

I gestured my hand over to the kitchen with lifted brows, “Hello?”

She turns to the kitchen and I follow her gaze, we both land on the same thing.

A completely empty black and white kitchen.

“What? I know the muffins aren’t done yet I-” Her voice faltered as she looked back at me, confused. “What’s wrong?”

One thing you could never underestimate is a woman’s intuition – and by the way she looked at me, I knew she knew something was up.

“Oh, oh,” I fake laughed and waved away the question, “Oh nothing.”

She eyed me curiously, “Okay…” Setting her bag on the counter. “Well, I have some bad news – well I have good news and bad news.” She scrunched her face like she was waiting for impact.

“Oh god, what.” I sighed, letting my hands fall to my sides.

“Well… bad news is, that none of the girls at work could get me anything.” She fidgeted with the silver rings wrapped around her boney fingers.

It was too early in the morning for me to be receiving such bad news. “Okay, well what’s the good news?”

She smiled wide, “Nox is coming home sooner than I thought, so he’ll be back and we can re-up then.”

My fingers curled into a tight fist, “How soon.”

The next succession of days blurred together into a fuzzy haze. Aspen had barely left my loft, only for her shifts at the club and to get food. The entire weight of the past two weeks settled an overwhelming ache pulsing in my blood vessels. Between Christmas, the plan with Nox, Aspen, New Years and the morning after, this had been the most unstable I’d felt in a long time. Maybe even since my Dad’s passing – maybe even before Elsie.

Everything was just shitty – and it was because of me.

None of this would’ve happened if I had just kept my hands off of things that didn’t belong to me – if I kept them off my best friend.

If I hadn’t relapsed, I wouldn’t have been cornered with the plan that landed Aspen in my lap in the first place.

The details and the technicalities didn’t matter, I just didn’t want to think. I didn’t want to feel. I didn’t want to let myself dwell on the specifics, on all the ways I fucked up, all the ways I was a shit person. I wanted to forget.

And Aspen helped to do exactly that. When my cock was in her mouth, when she was lighting my blunts, when she was pouring pills in my hand, when she was offering me lines, when she was sharing bottles of alcohol with me, she was doing exactly what Nox had intended her to do – distract me.

It hadn’t even been a week since Aspen’s ‘I love you’ and after I’d already finished the bottle of Percocet she’d given me. The little white pills were meant to be temporary, just to get over the hump of Xanax withdrawals while Nox was away– but as the absence of everything settled, panic began to fill the space. I knew I could handle the Xanax, I knew it like the back of my hand. Since college I’d learned how to deal with it, even when it got bad. But this…this was a beast I was never prepared to battle.

Xanax felt like a distant memory in the skyline of my mind. The only thing that took up any space in my head were those new pills. They put on little plays in the corners of my mind, they sang melodies into my ears drums. They were all I wanted, all I cared about, all I thought about.

In the midst of my withdrawals, the panic, the guilt from Elsie, and Aspen’s slip, tension was thick in the air between me and Aspen. I tried my best to stay calm, I really fucking did. But this comedown was nothing I’d ever felt before. I was just so ferociously angry all the time, at any and everything. I felt the aching need and the pure rage in my bones; it buried itself into the deepest crevices of my blood marrow.

I knew we’d end up in this situation eventually, where we’d run out and I’d end up in detox agony – or maybe I lied to myself and made the empty goal to not let it get to that point. But there we were.

This particular day, fury was burning holes through my veins, and Aspen’s lack of tidiness was my last straw. I stomped over to the bedroom, “I need you to come with me right now.”

“What? Why?” She squeaked and the pitch of her voice only amplified the skull splitting migraine I’d felt for the past 3 days.

I didn’t reply and simply pulled her by the cuff of her babypink sweater to the kitchen. “This.” I pointed to the lukewarm milk left on the counter. “How many times have I told you not to fucking leave the milk on the fucking counter.” The harsh words slipped through my lips before I could stop them. There was a tinge of guilt as they left me.

“Austin, what the fuck are you talking about?” She scrunched her brows perplexed. “That’s not even-”

“I’ve told you multiple times to not leave the milk out.” I spat out, repeating myself through gritted teeth, “Now the milk is spoiled.” I felt as though I was talking to a toddler.

She raised her brows in surprise, “I swear I don’t know what you’re talking about, I didn’t leave anything out.” She replied feigning innocence.

I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose between my middle finger and thumb attempting my best to remain calm. “Can you please stop fucking lying? I told you yesterday, literally right here in this very spot, to not leave the milk out.”

“Austin I-I don’t, we just,” She stuttered her way through, taking a step back from me.

“Oh my god Aspen, you can’t even admit to your own mistake?”

“I just, well I, I just don’t-” She faltered.

“Spit it out Aspen, what!”

“I swear I have no idea what you’re talking about,” She paused, “I don’t even drink milk, and,” An even longer pause while her eyes lingered on the half-gallon of dairy on the counter. “Aus, that’s orange juice.”

The room began to spin, and I stumbled back a step, “I uh- Yeah, yeah that’s what I meant, the orange juice.” I cleared my throat, “I told you not to leave out the orange juice.”

“Aus,” She held a breath before exhaling it, “I wasn’t even here yesterday, remember? I was working all day.” She took a step towards me, and going to place the back of her hand on my forehead, “You feelin’ okay?”

Reflexively, I smacked her arm away from me, “No Aspen, I don’t fucking feel good, I’ve been detoxing for the past 3 days. I feel like fucking ass right now.”

“Babe, I’m sorry. I couldn’t get anything from anyone.” Her tone was sad, like she knew she was disappointing me. “But Nox will be home in two days, so he’ll be able to come over.” She crossed the space between us and gently tucked some of my overgrown blonde hair behind my ear, “Okay? We just gotta make it two more days okay?”

Just two more days.

My front door jiggled open with the shuffle of two people coming through the door.

“Aus, we’re here.” Aspen called, the chill of winter hanging in her voice.

I spent the day in bed watching the ceiling and trying to smoke enough weed to stave off how miserable I felt. There was a brief moment of silence before her words had fully processed in my slowed mind. I closed my eyes and took a sharp inhale, both to prepare myself but also to gather enough strength to unglue from the engulfing mattress.

A rather unsettling feeling swirled in my stomach when my eyes landed on Nox in my kitchen. However, when I remembered that he didn’t come empty handed, there was an immediate wash of relief. Out of all the people in the world, my best friend’s shitty boyfriend shouldn’t be someone I got excited about seeing.

“There’s my man!” Nox beamed his signature disturbing grin. He threw an arm around my shoulders tugging me close in some fucked up half bro hug. The weight of his arm on my shoulders felt like sandbags. He pulled away and briefly inspected me, no doubt getting joy out of my bloodshot eyes lined with dark circles and pale broken out skin. “God you’ve never looked better.” His sarcasm sounded so genuine, maybe it wasn’t a lie that I never looked better to him.

Like straight out of a movie scene, he plopped down what looked like a high-end lawyer’s suitcase, unclasping each side of the locks before pulling up the lid. Inside was an addict’s candy land, the variety of substances seemed to hold anything you could possibly ever imagine. “So what’s it gonna be Butler? Take your pick.”

The air in the room became dense, like I was inside the walls of a cinder block. My eyes drifted between him and the full inventory.

I was really doing this. This was really happening.

“I uh-“ Running my tongue between my lips, then turned to Aspen. “What do you want babe?” Maybe if I gave her the responsibility, I would somehow make myself less accountable for our decisions.

She let out a small giggle then proceeded to point out the usual suspects. Pills, green, and powder. I gave Nox a nod confirming the decision and a smile curled across his lips, “Perfect!”

When Nox began gathering the products, I realized Aspen had made a mistake. It was the pure desperation that forced my hand to latch onto his wrist, shock flashed over his face before my eyes met his. “Not that one.” I stated lowly and he furrowed his brows in confusion. “I– We want Oxy.”

It took a brief moment for Nox to put together the pieces but when he did, a sinister beam spread across his face, “Well, well, quite an upgrade we’ve made huh?”

I crossed my arms, retracting into myself, “Can we just have some fucking Oxy.” I snapped, the anger bubbling up in me again. I was so close to tasting relief and he was just fucking around.

He scoffed and shook his head, plucking a pill bottle from the case, holding it up and giving it a shake in my eyeline, “I wouldn’t be so hasty with your words with someone who’s holding your fix.”

My brows lowered and my eyes felt like laser beams, but he was right, I couldn’t do much more than that. He held my salvation in his grimey tattooed hands.

“That’s what I thought.” He set down the bottle on the table. “I don’t have pure oxy, only Percocets.” He stated as he plucked the other parts of our order from his briefcase and set them aside in one little pile of substances. I nodded in acceptance.

Out of reflex, or maybe kindness, Aspen went to grab her wallet to pay but my hand landed on her arm. “You don’t need to.” I said simply.

Nox glanced over at Aspen with a crooked grin, “Don’t worry darlin’, your boyfriend and I got a little deal, you’re covered.”

“Oh.” She replied softly, retracting her hands back into herself and looked down at her fidgeting hands.

After Nox packed his pharmacy up, he wrapped an arm around my shoulders, “Good doin’ business with ya Butler.” He leaned into me, near my ear whispering, “And if you don't wanna lose your supply chain, don’t ever talk to me like that again, got it?” He landed a heavy pat on my back, knocking all the wind out of me.

Before the front door closed behind him, the pill bottle was twisted open and there was already a pill down my throat.

I felt the torment of a comedown like that and I didn’t plan to feel it again.

Next Chapter -> 31 - Mr. Percocet

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Sorry this update is so late 😅 and perhaps not the most interesting/fun but it is important to the plot! More eventful chapters are coming next 💗

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