Post by Justin on Feb 23, 2021 13:29:32 GMT -5
Well, that was certainly cute.
But it wasn’t real.
At least, not in any meaningful way.
Eric Dane was not sitting atop of some shrine to his own hubris. In fact, he wasn’t sitting at all. He was face down on the floor in a puddle bile and mucus, arms splayed in opposite directions and one leg kicked up awkwardly, a last bastion of an attempt to not be completely sprawled out in the floor like some kind of a relapsed drug addict.
“...champ...i’mma champ’in…”
He muttered into the frothy sputum; very probably in the throes of some opioid-induced fever dream. A quick scan of the apartment was all it took for Angus Skaaland to register exactly which kind of an Eric Dane Episode he’d found himself face to face with on this brisk Crescent City morning. The proof was in the pudding, and the pudding coated half the room if you considered congealed vomit to be either proof or pudding. The scattered mess of Oxycontin and Roxicodone encircling Dane on the floor like some kind of junkie halo only served to further state the obvious.
“Fuck,” Angus mumbled under his breath. “Not again.”
He should have known better than to hold out much hope. Angus was acutely aware of what chasing the dragon could do to a good man, nevermind what it could do to a morally questionable sociopath with chronic pain and inexhaustible access to outside funding and corporate sponsorship.
“...mongo...gus...me-me-me-all-me…”
Graysie pops her head in next, likely also responding to the commotion that had roused Angus from the one good hour of sleep he might have otherwise eeked out.
“Wha’s goin’ on?” she asked while rubbing sleep from her eyes.
“Nothing. Go back to bed.”
It was already too late. Graysie was young, and maybe a touch naive, but she knew the tell tale signs of an overdose when they slapped her in the face like sixty-four ounces of high octane espresso at four o’clock in the morning.
“Wait, is he-”
“He’s not,” Angus states matter-of-factly as he backs her out of the room. “Nothing you can do for him right now, kid. Besides, picking up after the almighty over there has been my cross to bear for more years than I can count. Now go on, shoo!”
Graysie hesitates. Angus presses her.
“Don’t worry about it, I’ll call if I need you.”
She nods and turns back, skulking away wishing that there was some way for her to be useful all the while cursing Eric for being so weak-willed as to put himself and his friends and family through this kind of nonsense.
“...fix is in...can’t win…”
“...me...me...me…”
“...NEWSFLASH!”
Eric lurched upward.
Angus spun on his heels and locked eyes with The Only Star and for a fraction of a lucid second. Another, much more thorough glance around the room gave Angus a deeper understanding of the situation. A tale of chaos and confusion was written everywhere as he recognized the North American Double Crown title belt folded haphazardly into a pile in the corner, it’s center plate dusted in what appeared to be crushed hydrocodone.
“Fuck.”
Angus had spent too many years as Eric Dane’s fixer. That didn’t make it any easier to watch his oldest friend collapse face-first into a pile of jellied bile. He took out his phone and tapped a few buttons, the urge to inhale an entire carton of smokes crept up the backside of his spine and into his subconsciousness. He’d been all but quit for months, but knew that today the purple-tasting substitute in his vaporizer wasn’t going to get the job done.
“It’s me,” he spoke into the phone. “I need a room. Full spectrum rehab. Yeah, everything. He needs a hard reset and before the sixteenth of March.”
Another few taps and he was disconnected.
Angus was keenly aware that sooner or later Eric’s heart would give out or he’d pop an aneurysm in his brain or he’d get too fucked up and piss off the wrong asshole in the wrong bar and end up toe-tagged and cold-slabbed. He’d known it for a for twenty fuckin’ years, though. How Eric Dane hadn’t keeled over and died in front of him any of a hundred times was beyond Angus.
But one day.
Sooner than later.
Angus knows.
Hell, Eric knows.
It ain’t gonna be today, though. The NPW Champion surges again, this time finding enough purchase on the wall to try and pull himself up off the floor. He is just about to speak when his face turns green and he throws up.
Again.
At least there is that, Angus shrugs to himself.
But it wasn’t real.
At least, not in any meaningful way.
Eric Dane was not sitting atop of some shrine to his own hubris. In fact, he wasn’t sitting at all. He was face down on the floor in a puddle bile and mucus, arms splayed in opposite directions and one leg kicked up awkwardly, a last bastion of an attempt to not be completely sprawled out in the floor like some kind of a relapsed drug addict.
“...champ...i’mma champ’in…”
He muttered into the frothy sputum; very probably in the throes of some opioid-induced fever dream. A quick scan of the apartment was all it took for Angus Skaaland to register exactly which kind of an Eric Dane Episode he’d found himself face to face with on this brisk Crescent City morning. The proof was in the pudding, and the pudding coated half the room if you considered congealed vomit to be either proof or pudding. The scattered mess of Oxycontin and Roxicodone encircling Dane on the floor like some kind of junkie halo only served to further state the obvious.
“Fuck,” Angus mumbled under his breath. “Not again.”
He should have known better than to hold out much hope. Angus was acutely aware of what chasing the dragon could do to a good man, nevermind what it could do to a morally questionable sociopath with chronic pain and inexhaustible access to outside funding and corporate sponsorship.
“...mongo...gus...me-me-me-all-me…”
Graysie pops her head in next, likely also responding to the commotion that had roused Angus from the one good hour of sleep he might have otherwise eeked out.
“Wha’s goin’ on?” she asked while rubbing sleep from her eyes.
“Nothing. Go back to bed.”
It was already too late. Graysie was young, and maybe a touch naive, but she knew the tell tale signs of an overdose when they slapped her in the face like sixty-four ounces of high octane espresso at four o’clock in the morning.
“Wait, is he-”
“He’s not,” Angus states matter-of-factly as he backs her out of the room. “Nothing you can do for him right now, kid. Besides, picking up after the almighty over there has been my cross to bear for more years than I can count. Now go on, shoo!”
Graysie hesitates. Angus presses her.
“Don’t worry about it, I’ll call if I need you.”
She nods and turns back, skulking away wishing that there was some way for her to be useful all the while cursing Eric for being so weak-willed as to put himself and his friends and family through this kind of nonsense.
“...fix is in...can’t win…”
“...me...me...me…”
“...NEWSFLASH!”
Eric lurched upward.
Angus spun on his heels and locked eyes with The Only Star and for a fraction of a lucid second. Another, much more thorough glance around the room gave Angus a deeper understanding of the situation. A tale of chaos and confusion was written everywhere as he recognized the North American Double Crown title belt folded haphazardly into a pile in the corner, it’s center plate dusted in what appeared to be crushed hydrocodone.
“Fuck.”
Angus had spent too many years as Eric Dane’s fixer. That didn’t make it any easier to watch his oldest friend collapse face-first into a pile of jellied bile. He took out his phone and tapped a few buttons, the urge to inhale an entire carton of smokes crept up the backside of his spine and into his subconsciousness. He’d been all but quit for months, but knew that today the purple-tasting substitute in his vaporizer wasn’t going to get the job done.
“It’s me,” he spoke into the phone. “I need a room. Full spectrum rehab. Yeah, everything. He needs a hard reset and before the sixteenth of March.”
Another few taps and he was disconnected.
Angus was keenly aware that sooner or later Eric’s heart would give out or he’d pop an aneurysm in his brain or he’d get too fucked up and piss off the wrong asshole in the wrong bar and end up toe-tagged and cold-slabbed. He’d known it for a for twenty fuckin’ years, though. How Eric Dane hadn’t keeled over and died in front of him any of a hundred times was beyond Angus.
But one day.
Sooner than later.
Angus knows.
Hell, Eric knows.
It ain’t gonna be today, though. The NPW Champion surges again, this time finding enough purchase on the wall to try and pull himself up off the floor. He is just about to speak when his face turns green and he throws up.
Again.
At least there is that, Angus shrugs to himself.
