Things were, at least, a little better now that Donnie knew that John was okay. Well, that was if a demon could ever be considered to be "okay", though that was a strange enough thing to get his head around in the first place. Sure, it was a good thing that John wasn't completely dead in the sense that Donnie could never, ever, not even the once, ever see his brother again but neither was it a good thing as he was, still, regardless of anything else, very much dead. And that he'd sacrificed himself for Donnie was something that neither of them had addressed as yet, much to their detriment, most likely, but it was as it was.
Grunting, Donnie swung back and forth in his computer chair, the tall one that had made him feel more imposing than he was in reality. It had always been John who'd had that commanding, driving presence about him, towering easily with a smirk on his face. He'd come into his own, truly, in the building of their empire but it was a foolish notion indeed to expect himself to simply be John when there was so much in the business that only John could do. Turning a blind eye one-hundred-percent of the time was one of those things.
"You've got to keep on them," John had said last time he'd come to the mortal world of Donnie and other beings (as John supposedly laughingly liked to call it). "They need to be controlled, need to be kept on track. You think those idiots will know what to do without being told? Those peons think they can take power at any turn too..." His frown had deepened. "Watch them. Always watch them."
In the end, it had turned out that John had been looking in an entirely different direction, his death coming from elsewhere than within. They still didn't quite know whether John was gone or not as it had not been put out there, though there were always rumours. Sometimes Charles could pose well enough as John but there was a bit of a height difference in that one for those that knew better or when there was not the shadow of nightfall beneath the street lights to be taken into account too. Ruses were best undertaken with the lies of darkness to cover up the truth, although it was sure that, sooner or later, the truth would come out on that matter. And then Donnie would have to be more prepared than he had ever been to stand up and take the helm with the steel in his eye that John too had boasted. Some could say that he'd been practising. Others would say that he wasn't quite there yet.
Of course, he had not told Charles about all of that as yet but, well, it didn't seem like the sort of thing that he needed to know, even though it was sure enough that John was going to reveal himself at some point. Donnie frowned. The bastard had already flashed his enemies, those that were lurking and lingering after his death, seeking to get a hold on what he still very much saw as "his" empire.
"Why does he even care?"
Although he knew the technical answer to that question as he sat bolt upright in bed in the dead of the night, sweeping his fingers back through hair that was a little greasier than he may have wanted it to be, it still didn't make sense. That was the problem with questions and answers like that: the results of them didn't have to make sense to still be classed as answers and, well, that was just something that people had to deal with. He'd had an answer so why did he care about other things so much when it was there, all answered, nice and neat and oh so easy to take in?
"Oh, fuck it..."
He grunted in the back of his throat and was on his feet before he realised it, his body knowing better what he needed to do than his mind. He did not "use" for the purposes of desperation all that often but, sometimes, the lure was too great.
Just a break, a little break. He wasn't addicted, not by any means, though not even Donnie could explain why that was. Maybe he was just around it so much and changed drugs so much that things were "okay" in that regard, though there were other potential explanations too that even someone like him could not acknowledge at that time. Namely, John's demonhood, if that could even have all that much of an explanation to it.
No. Not now. Not then. Donnie fumbled in his stash, the night blurring. Had he been drinking? It was hard to remember, hard to load up the drug into the syringe, a different way of taking it to what he was used to. Meth was a drug of choice for so many but he baulked from the needles, usually needing John to do it for him, though even demon John had acquiesced to the task from time to time. It was all prepared, all ready, just needing to be injected, and he guessed at the dose as the room dipped and swayed around him. Was that his kitchen? It could have been. But it could have been the living room too?
Nothing made sense, reality shifting around him, the lines of it blurring in a way that he could hardly understand. Things didn't look right, nothing at all, lights flashing and blurring, euphoria coursing through him. The spent syringe fell to the floor, a trickle of fluid at the tip, and he blinked at it dully. Had he used that? Or was it left there, accidentally, from another time?
Down, down, down... He wanted to move but could not, times changing too quickly around him, snarling and howling, ripping him up and away from the world he knew. His eyes were closed and yet he saw everything, everything that had ever happened, the drug sending him back through his memories, tearing and roaring. There was nothing to cling to even as he thought he was laughing out loud, the ecstasy driving him to claw and scramble, searching for...something. Something, yes, he was searching for something, but just what that something was he did not know. His chest hurt, making him think that he was laughing or something else, something else, something else, something...else...
It was not blacking out but something different, a screeching like a train grinding to a halt at the end of the tracks, off the tracks, lost and gone for so much else. He tried to cry out but there was no sound anymore, no sound that he could make, the world black and white and every shade of colour in the world all at the same time.
And then it stopped, abruptly, casting him out of the whirlwind, staggering and swearing, though his head was clearer than ever. He caught himself, though there didn't seem to be any walls where he was either, the nausea that usually accompanied the come-down from a drug high not even roiling in his stomach anymore. What was up with that?
He stood up, however shakily it came to him, shoulder blades pushing back. Was he taller? That didn't make sense. But where was he? What was happening? One question after the other chased through his mind as he touched his face, the bridge of his nose, his lips. It did not ground him as he'd hoped, a disconcerting sense of something not being "right" twisting in his gut, almost as if gravity had changed. And yet his feet were still firmly rooted into whatever the ground was at that very moment, though he could not have said quite what that was.
Donnie peered closer, the ground seeming to rise to him rather than him bend down towards the ground. Mud? Stone? It seemed to change consistency, a strange sort of pliable, malleable gloop that clung to the soles of his shoes without dragging him back. His clothes were, at least, normal, jeans and a slouchy T-shirt without any stains on it, which was something at least. There was nothing worse than waking up somewhere after a drug-high or alcohol-induced binge-bender in dirty, soiled clothes.
"Fuck..."
Donnie swept both hands through his hair, pushing it back from his face, though he saw more clearly than ever before too. That had to have been it. He'd taken too much, been on his own, fucked off somewhere and gone on a little joy ride or whatnot, woken up in a gutter somewhere. Yet the street did not look familiar, the blurry edges taking form and shape in the lines of a city that was foreign to him, sirens blaring in the distance, broken neon signs flickering and buzzing. Grime coated the ground, however it clung to him, but he shook whatever it was that meant off the best he could. Fuck that. He didn't have to think about that.
"Now, how the fuck am I going to get out of here..."
But, wait, that didn't make sense if he'd just taken too much and buggered off somewhere else - how the hell would he have gotten out of his city if that was the case? He'd been in John's penthouse, the old penthouse, he was sure of it, the spot that John had loved so much, even though he'd not exactly wanted to own up to that out loud. John didn't like to say when he liked anything, letting his actions speak for themselves and woe betide everyone who dared say anything.
