SO BAD [MXM] [MAFIA] ✓

42: FREE

When Skylar wakes up, he's back in the room. Except, there's no blinding white, distant exit this time. Nope, the room is as it was the first time Skylar was here, when he originally encountered monster Ashton. The ink is covering the ground, only a couple inches thick, and Skylar is sitting in it.

He glances around the room, unable to see anything in the darkness, and wonders if this is supposed to be hell or something.

Shit. That's right. His withdrawal pushed him to the edge, and he made a fatal mistake. He lost the strength to resist it, the lack of cytozine messed his mind up so much that he couldn't take it anymore. He went overboard, and there is no room for going overboard. Not with this drug.

Stupid fucking Crimson. When the hell did he even have time to put that container in their bathroom, anyway? Was he at the penthouse longer than they thought? Uh oh, did he see Skylar get fingered to completion?

Whatever, guess it doesn't matter now. Skylar's dead, there's no doubt about it. God knows how many pills he took, but it had to be a dozen times over what used to be his typical dose. Skylar was probably done for after five pills, let alone 50. Unless he was somehow—impossibly—in a hospital within minutes, getting his stomach pumped... or something... it's over.

Skylar sighs, running a hand through his hair and trying to ignore the way it shakes. Honestly, if he's actually in some sort of personal hell right now, it's pretty fitting. Those nightmares and hallucinations really fucked him up, now it appears as though he gets to spend eternity trapped in them.

Lovely.

"So it's true."

Skylar jumps at the voice, glancing around the pitch black room and feeling on edge. Seriously, he has no idea what the hell to do right now. If anything, he's doing his best not to think, specifically about Ashton. The last thing he wants on his mind right now is what his death has likely done to Ash, something Skylar will never forgive himself for.

How could he let it win? How could he give in like that? Maybe he deserves this, after all.

Skylar has no idea where that voice came from, but he knows it's familiar. It's a distinctly female voice, but Skylar is unsure how he recognizes her. There doesn't appear to be anyone else in the room with him, either, which throws him off even more.

Then again, he can barely see his hand is he holds it a few inches from his face. The only way he'd know if someone was in the room with him would be through hearing them. However, the ink surrounding him feels motionless as ever.

"What?" Skylar asks, frowning and feeling disoriented. He's no longer looking around the room, because it was pointless anyway. "What's true?"

Dead silence, and Skylar frowns. He rubs the side of his head, starting to wonder if maybe he hallucinated the voice or something. That wouldn't make sense, though, because Skylar has gotten pretty good at being able to tell when he's hallucinating. There's a certain... filter to the world, that isn't there usually. It's not there now. He can feel the ink between his fingers.

"You love me." The voice sounds closer this time, but there's obviously no way for Skylar to validate that. He just frowns, trying to figure what that could possibly mean. He loves who?

Then, it occurs to him. That voice he was hearing in his dreams, that followed him to consciousness. The voice that he trusted and followed unquestioningly.

The voice that asked him to prove his love.

Well, he fucking did, and that is unmistakably who he is hearing right now.

Skylar sees a reflection across the liquid that surrounds him, and he squints at it in an attempt to get his eyes to focus on where it's coming from. He finds that it originated from a small, luminescent object floating across the ink towards him. It looks familiar, but it's only when it's right in front of him that Skylar recognizes it as a pill. A familiar, catastrophically beautiful yellow color that he's all too familiar with.