The Sweet Addiction-Shotglass rp

[Caden Dean]

Midnight: Darkness had come with full strength upon Dallas hours earlier as the lights of the city twinkled throughout the sky like stars that hovered near the ground. A shabby apartment complex shares the lifelessness of the nighttime. Only the streetlamps in the parking lot and on the road illuminate the grounds. However, despite the midnight hour and despite the total darkness, life is full swing as a table lamp flicks on in a third floor apartment. Caden Dean’s unshaven face is sickly pale as he retrieves a cigarette from his half empty pack. The apartment is in complete shambles. It strangely resembles a larger version of the trashy room in which he slept earlier in the week. Now, however, he sat upon a collapsing futon dressed in full clothing as if he were waiting to leave for some unknown destination. His eyes are reddened with lack of sleep and perhaps some intoxicant that he had previously taken. His hands tremble as he lights the Marlboro Mild Menthol. He exhales a thick cloud of deadly smoke.

Caden Dean: The New Year brings on so much stress to the human body and people still wonder why humans would rather spend the time celebrating the new found stress by completely inebriating themselves. A new year means resolutions and resolutions mean promising one’s self to stray from the one thing they enjoy the most, however the wish to stop it. The pathetic thing is that the labels we place on society are being shed by those who believe their willpower is strong enough to overcome even the toughest feats.

Smokers try to quit or cut back. Drunks long for sobriety. Addicts seek rehabilitation. The lonely find love. The overweight, they try to diet. The poor, they attempt to manage their money. The corrupt take vows of reform. But what if the labels that they have become overtime are keeping them whole? What if a man is nothing more than what society sees him as? Is it possible for a shell of a man to survive without his bad habits?

Caden stands to stretch for a few seconds revealing the large scar on his stomach placed their by his stepfather’s pocket knife. He drops the cigarette in the ashtray upon the small coffee table and begins to pace.

Caden: Why do we wish to give up on the things we have done for so long? Is it to please society or to please ourselves? Why do we seek to conform to the standards that man has created? Do we fear individuality?

From the shadows of the darkened apartment, another man emerges dressed in red plaid pajama pants and socks. He rubs his eyes, his hair an arrangement of messy waves from a rough sleep. He leans against a far wall. As he lowers his arm, Caden turns to face him.

Caden: Did I wake you?

Man: No. I noticed you weren’t in bed. I had to come check on you.

Caden: I can’t sleep. The Xanax has me itchy and anxious.

Man: I told you not to take an entire bar before bed. You never listen, Caden.

Caden: I can’t sleep. I keep thinking I made a big mistake coming here.

Man: No one forced you to come. I never force you to come. You come when you get angry or scared or when you are starving for another high.

Caden: I appreciate it, Joel. If I had a heart, I’d say I loved you.

Man (now known as Joel): You have a heart.

Joel walks to the coffee table and begins to smoke Caden’s cigarette. Caden watches him attentively, the way a child watches their parents, both closely and lovingly. Joel yawns.

Joel: What’s troubling you?

Caden: Did I make the right decision…leaving the trailer park…leaving my ma?

Joel: She told you that you could never go back right? If you left and chased your silly dream?

Caden: That and if I didn’t quit dealing and using.

Joel: Did you want to stay with your mother forever?

Caden: I saw sadness in her eyes. The way she looked when I came home from school each day either beaten to a pulp or covered in egg yoke, paint, water, or oil. She looked…humiliated, ashamed, even amused at that fact that I was leaving her house.

Joel: Did you tell her you were coming here?

Caden: I did.

Joel: And?

Caden: She said exactly what I expected her to say. ‘You really are a ****ing homo aren’t you! My son, the drug addict f*g!’

Joel laughed hysterically as Caden moved to the futon beside him. Joel wrapped an arm around Caden pulling him near.

Joel: If she only knew! I’ve been trying to f**k you for how long now? The closest I can get to that is you sharing the same bed. Doesn’t she know you aren’t gay?

Caden: No one understands anything about my life. They see the exterior, but they never look for anything spectacular. It’s a shame almost.

Joel: Why do you let them get to you? You and I both know you aren’t gay.

Caden: Am I not?

Joel: No! Caden, I’ve been out of the ‘closet’ for seven years now. I can safely tell that you aren’t…

Caden: Everyone else thinks I am.

Joel: That still doesn’t make you…do you honestly think that makes you…

Caden: I don’t know what I think anymore.

Joel: Come to bed.

Caden kissed Joel lightly on the right hand and walked him to the back disappearing into the darkness.

Caden: I’ll be to bed shortly.

He walked slowly to the joined kitchen and pulled a flask from the refrigerator and took a large swig before returning the cap.

Caden: What’s so funny about peace, love, and understanding?

He paces slowly before stopping at the window. He gazes into the darkness of the city night.

Caden: TJ Extreme, a name like that leads me to believe that you enjoy life on the edge. The sad thing is, life on the edge is never the most “extreme” way to live. Fast cars, sky diving, taking risks, sure the thrill seems so wonderful, the way the adrenaline rushes, one would assume that you are a daredevil among men.

I may not be Caden Extreme, but I’m sure my hellish life is more intense than you could ever imagine. Try imagining yourself as a fourteen year old boy sitting in class while the other children mock you audible enough for even the teacher to hear. You sit alone in the pit of your own mind as girls giggle about the way your clothes smell, the boys toss paper balls at your head screaming f*g as they bounce one after the other off of your ‘back board’ head.

Not extreme enough? Picture a young boy being lashed at with half full beer bottles, thick leather belts; imagine the imprint of a large metal eagle belt buckle on your back. Consider sitting among the ruin of a filthy falling apart house with drunken parents screaming at one another, an older brother telling his friends about your secret make up stash, your mother sitting back watching as your stepfather extinguishes a cigarette onto the palm of your left hand for punishment.

[Caden Dean]

Caden turns from the window and takes a seat upon the broken futon. He sits silently arranging his thoughts. Caden pulls another cigarette from the pack. He then reaches across the table for a small medicine bottle of clear liquid. Dipping his finger lightly into the bottle, he gently smears the cigarette with the unknown liquid and sets it down to dry.

I remember the first time I ever tried cocaine. At this time in my life, I had already embraced the dark weird side of my inner self. A few older boys decided I needed to be their new apprentice and had casually persuaded me over time to act, dress, and think like them. I conformed quickly, they were the first of very few people who helped me evolve into the screwed up mess I am now. That night I sat a boy among ‘men’ snorting line after line until I was so tweaked that I walked for three straight hours into the darkness.

I eventually came to in the parking garage of a large Gay bar in downtown Dallas called the Labyrinth. That is where I met Joel. At that time he was barely eighteen years old, but for some reason he appeared so mature and fatherly before me. A few older men were speaking to me, they noticed the white residue around my nostrils and immediately assumed that I was holding. One insisted that he could ‘do me a favor’ in exchange for the coke.

Joel rescued me thankfully. He snatched me from the grasp of drugged men looking for good times and good drugs. That night he drove me back to this apartment. I lied about my age to seem worthy enough to be in his presence. That night I loved for the first time.

The cravings for drugs grew as I spent more time around both Joel and the Goths. I jumped from pot to coke, from smack to crack, crack to heroine for one week (the heroine made me irritable), back to coke…eventually I tried crystal meth. I’ll never do that again. I dealt weed to kids my age, what little coke I could get my hands on I kept for Joel and I, the meth went straight to Dale.

When the money was scarce, I would steal from the diner my mother worked at. During the weekends, Joel would drop me off near the bar, I would ‘hang out’ looking for someone to ‘exchange’ with. That was the lowest of my lows.

What possibly could be more extreme? Oh, the suffering, still you learn. Your tears deem you the suffering. Wise words that I will stick by. The principle of the matter is that no matter how tough you are externally, whether you can withstand beatings, sexual abuse, violation, addictions you cannot control, it is how strong you are internally that determines your integrity. Yet, still, no matter what I have overcome, I have succumbed to the deterioration of my inner light. It fades. I am strong only because I have to be. Weakness on a lifeless form shows like fireworks in the night sky. I would hate for the enemies to see one drop of internal struggle.

Caden lights the cigarette. Exhaling, he coughs loudly then quickly places his hands on his temples. His mind blurs with dizziness.

Caden: All alone in the city, my hands are stoned with pity. I could get by or get high or fifty and I don’t feel pretty….today….so blood blood blood…slithers down my ankles….

He slowly lowers his arms turning them to see his wrists. Identical vertical scars on his wrists flush with color as he admires them.

Caden: We all dream…sometimes our dreams consume us and we fall into a nightmare…but nightmares cannot harm you. Not when your entire life has been one hell sent nightmare after the other…see you Saturday, TJ...until then...count bodies like sheep to the rhythem of the war drums and go back to sleep…

Caden leans back in a stoned daze as he stares at a blacklight poster of sex positions on the wall. His eyes narrow and redden light tiny red Christmas lights in his eyesockets. He continues to smoke his ‘wet’ cigarette as we hear the soft snores of Joel in the next room.


OOC: This is most likely part 1 of a 2 part rp...depending on if my opponent counter rps

[Seth Xavier]

Nice, Kyzer has a fellow junkie if I bring him here. Very good rp. You are very talented.