Work Text:
Pete had only needed one hit, just one, to keep him this side of sane. The music, Carl, both are a great release, but it’s just not enough sometimes, and he’d been desperate, so desperate. Now, as he leans against the side of the stall, fingers hooked just over the edge of the toilet bowl to avoid sliding down into a proper heap on the tile, this feels like this might very well be worse. He wishes Carl was here, swiping impatiently at his face with the rough toilet paper, pulling him up off the dirty tile. Instead, he lies there, by sheer luck not in a pool of his own vomit, feeling grimy down to veins and marrow, shaken and shaking.
More and more often, Pete finds he has to pick himself up. He tries not to imagine what it will be like for him here should Carl decide to never pick him up again. Suddenly terrified, he jerks and jolts himself upright, yanking first on the toilet, then on the toilet roll dispenser. Fag--nicotine--cigarette, he thinks desperately, synonyms jumbling nauseously together. If he can't have Carl, at least Pete can have that, whatever it's called. He's almost too tired to breathe, but he might just manage it, if the air is filtered through smoke.