𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐔𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐘 - 𝑓. ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑔𝑟𝑒𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑠

011. RETURN OF THE XANAX

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RETURN OF THE XANAX ☂︎︎

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TW: drug use

IT HAD SEEMED ALL WAS WELL.

That was what Charlotte had assumed when she had gotten into the car. It had been a crazy ride home with Klaus belting high notes every few miles and Diego groaning in annoyance. The sun was setting into a thin line of pink and as frustrated as she had been she was sure Five would be back.

She'd have to trust his judgement.

As difficult as it was.

But upon arriving at the Academy; tired, drowsy. Her mind was exhausted, the fear inflicted throughout the day causing a hyperfixation on every item her eyes laid on. It was as though there was a funnel of static around everything. As though everything was mid-switch. Mid-transition.

The top, she thought, while changing into her pajamas. She set her coat on the bed, digging into the right pocket fumbling around in the fabric for the top.

Her hand came up empty.

She blinked.

Her hand fumbled into the left pocket... empty.

It was then she slowly began to panic. Façade completely crumbling as she scoured the room, pulling open shelves, looking under the bed, throwing off the sheets. The most taxing part of the disappearance was that she had no idea how it could've gotten lost. She was the only one who ever touched it, and kept an eye on it so keenly.

She couldn't have lost it.

The hour was spent scampering, tears stinging at her eyes, frantic breaths being pushed from her lungs. She searched Klaus's room, Five's room, redid his sheets, searched amongst the lines of chalk. She ran downstairs and rummaged through the kitchen, the living room. She was sure that by the time it was nine o'clock she had managed to check every square inch of the house twice over.

Charlotte found nothing.

The practical side of her, the scientific side, the reason in her reminded her that she would be okay. This was real. It was going to be okay. Tout ira bien, like she had been asked and later assured many times before.

However, none of the remaining Hargreeves siblings spoke fluent French and she doubted the sentence would roll off their tongues in the way she had grown accustomed to.

But logic does not win over emotion despite what the likes of logicians such as Charlotte Beaumont or Five Hargreeves liked to believe. There would be no stopping the fear that pounded in the depths of her mind as though a gong had been struck within its confines. Fear, doubt, hatred towards what she was, what she could do, they would hollow her from the inside out. As she slid down the wall in tears, her chest cavity feeling empty as though her heart no longer thumped, her stomach bare with the exception of tightly knotted cords.

Fear won over Charlotte as one certain lady had expected it to do.

And her mind found its way to the garbage on the side of the house.

More so than ever she felt filthy, hands scouring through the piles of trash for an orange prescription bottle. Filthy, in the sense that here she was, digging through trash, in search of a pill that would sink her down as opposed to pushing her up. Everything was zooming in and out, a mesh of close-ups and colors that induced a further headache. A part of her hoped she wouldn't find it. That she'd have to live with herself being a filthy, reckless mess.