Adrienne & Jean-Paul | Early Saturday Morning

[x-quebecois.livejournal.com]

After waking up, Adrienne discovers her 'insurance' and goes to the only friend she's fairly certain might be at the mansion for help.


The bedroom clock read 4:45am when Adrienne was able to focus, albeit blearily, on it. She realized it was her own clock, that she was in her own bed, though the last thing she remembered from last night was being in Garrison's bed. Her head was pounding, her mouth fuzzy, her stomach queasy. She hadn't been that drunk since her bender with Manuel years ago. What the hell had they done last night? She remembered the drinking, and going back to his place, but everything else was in that black hole of Hangoverland.

Her purse was on the nightstand, which was not its usual resting place. Had Garrison brought her back to her room? Had she passed out? Damn, her head ached too much to make sense of it. She had aspirin in her purse. It would save having to get up and go to the bathroom to get it, and she wasn't sure she could move. It had been late when they'd left the bar, nearly closing time- was it possible she was still drunk?

She reached into her purse for the aspirin, but as she groped around for it in the pre-dawn darkness, her fingers closed around something else. A baggie of powder. Wait, what?

Oh shit. Oh shit... oh shit oh shit oh shit oh SHIT. There's cocaine in my purse. Holy fucking SHIT.

The events of the evening suddenly came crashing back into focus.

For a moment Adrienne considered locking her door so no one would be able to get to her, going back to bed, and hiding out for a very long time.

But she couldn't hide out. Not when it came to this. This was not something she could deal with herself. She needed help.

Without a second thought, she got out of bed, still dressed in her clothes from the bar, grabbed her purse, pulled out her phone, and left her suite. Vanessa and Amanda were in the city, Jean-Paul could be at the mansion or in the city, she had no idea where Emma was, Jean was chock-full of her own problems, and Garrison was just as drunk as herself. Jean-Paul it is, she thought to herself, and was dialing his number even as she skidded down the hallway to knock on the door of his suite.

It took Jean-Paul a moment to realize that his phone was buzzing, but once he noticed it, he checked the clock. Five in the morning? Who would be calling at five in the morning? It had to be something important. So he put his cereal down and picked it up - Adrienne. "Oui?" He asked, clicking the 'answer' button and holding the mobile to his ear.

"Where are you?" Adrienne asked, trying not to sound panicked as she knocked on his suite door again. "I-I need... help. Are you at the mansion?"

"In the kitchen," Jean-Paul said, already dumping his cereal out and leaving the bowl in the sink. He was out the kitchen door, upstairs, and in his own window within moments, though, and then opening his suite door to find Adrienne standing there. "Or I was - what is wrong?"

Adrienne dug the eight-ball out of her purse and shoved it at him. "You need to flush this. Now. Please, just... just get rid of it. I-I don't even- I bought it and I don't- I can't..." Well, so much for not panicking.

Taking the baggie, Jean-Paul blinked for a moment because he wasn't entirely sure it was what he thought it was, but Adrienne wouldn't be acting so strangely if it wasn't. He headed for the bathroom, though he wasn't sure if she wanted to watch him flush it or if she just needed it gone. Jean-Paul wasn't taking chances.

After emptying the bag into the toilet, he flushed it, then rinsed out the baggie, threw it in the trash bin, and sped back into the living room. Sometimes, being a speedster was very convenient. "It is gone."

Adrienne had entered the suite and closed and locked Jean-Paul's door so that no one could stumble along and see what he was doing. She stayed in the living room where she could see him flush the cocaine from a distance and let out a nervous breath she didn't realize she'd been holding as she watched him dispose of it. Her hands were shaking and she swallowed hard. "Thank you," she told him with a grateful nod. She meant to turn around and go, but couldn't seem to remember in that moment how to make her feet work, still so deeply affected by her own thoughts and fears.

He noted her shaking, steeled himself, and reached for her hand. "Come, Adrienne. Sit." Jean-Paul very vaguely remembered being in situations like this himself. Different highs, different lows, but the universal truth was that, in the end, being alone while you were trying to deal with something like this was almost worse than whatever started your downward spiral in the first place.

There was a protest in the back of her head about it being so early and having taken him away from something and not wanting to bother him, but instead of making it, Adrienne found herself following him to the couch and sitting down. She put her head between her knees for a few seconds, hoping that maybe it would help her to think more clearly, and quell the nausea that she was feeling. After a few moments she straightened up and rested her head on the back of the couch, blinking back tears. "I'm sorry for all of this. I just... I didn't want to be alone right now."

Jean-Paul shook his head, settling his palm on Adrienne's shoulder. "Do not apologize," he said. "You have nothing to apologize for, mon ami." Shifting back against the cushions, he slid his arm behind her neck and curled it around her shoulders.

"Thanks," she murmured, blowing out another charged breath. "I don't even... everything's such a mess, I must still be drunk, because I can't think... why the fuck would I buy cocaine? I've been clean for fifteen years, for Chrissake!"

"It does not have to make sense for you to have done it," Jean-Paul said quietly. "Do not over-analyze it so much. It happened. Find the reason for it and... avoid that thing." Then he paused and slid his eyes to the side. "Fifteen years?" He'd never even known she'd been an addict.

"Fifteen years," Adrienne repeated. "Since I was nineteen." It was easier to talk about the past than it was to think about the future, to process what he'd said about avoiding the thing that had caused her to feel it necessary to buy the cocaine in the first place, since she was beginning to remember why she'd done it. "I'd been using for three years pretty steadily by that point. I had no control over my powers and I told myself the drugs helped because they made everything I touched less... loud. It was easier to just stay high than to figure out how to control my powers or deal with the things I was seeing.

"Someone kept urging me to go to Sierra Tuscon. I don't even remember who," she chuckled wryly. "I went to get them off my back. Because I had no control over my powers, I Read everything there. Some of the things I saw... the lengths people would go to get a score, the return visits, the deaths... and the fact that nothing I Read ever leaves me, was enough to scare the shit out of me and keep me clean. But apparently a drinking session with Garrison was enough to have me losing control badly enough to buy an eight-ball out of the Zeitgeist washroom."

Jean-Paul could smell the alcohol on her, wondered if the hangover had hit her yet. "A drinking session with Garrison?" He frowned, then shook his head. What could he say? It wasn't like he'd ever had to deal with that kind of addiction before. He had no experience with it - yes, he'd had his benders, he'd had his moments of profound disillusionment and depression, he'd drunk himself into a stupor and done incredibly reckless, stupid things... but nothing quite like this. "It is good that you came to me," he finally said, looking up at his ceiling and considering it for a long moment. "Sometimes... sometimes not being alone is for the best, oui? Even when you are not so sure what the other people can do to help you, if anything, it is enough that they are there."

"I think... it's not even so much that what I need from someone is some tangible thing," Adrienne mused, wondering if she was finally beginning to understand this 'asking for help' thing, "I mean, it's not like I need you to 'do' anything to help me, specifically... except put up with me, I guess, but yeah, it's more like, just having someone there and not being alone is what's helping." She reached back into her purse and pulled out the aspirin bottle she'd been searching for before, popping two into her mouth.

"Okay, so, even though I didn't actually use the coke, I must have wanted to at some point, which is, of course, the definition of why I'm an addict. And in the vein of not dealing with things alone, I guess it's back to Narcotics Anonymous I go." She tried to say it flippantly, smiling, but in truth she took it very seriously.

Jean-Paul tugged on a lock of Adrienne's hair, then shook his head a bit. "I have never been to one of these meetings. I am not so sure how they work. But if it helps you, then I think it is good that you go. There is only so much that you can do alone, after all."

Adrienne swatted at his hand playfully. She was definitely starting to see something to this not being alone thing, because she was starting to feel better, quashing that tiny part of her that still argued that being here so she wouldn't have to be alone was a sign of weakness. "Yeah," she agreed, not managing to stifle a yawn, "I'm starting to realize that. Mostly being alone seems to involve a lot of fear and self-doubt and hiding out. Like in Boston. It sucked. I don't wanna feel like that anymore." She rested her head on his shoulder. "Do you think I could sleep here a little today?"

"Of course," Jean-Paul said, shifting a little to make himself more comfortable. "Here or the bed, whichever you like. I was not going to do anything today, so I will be here when you wake."

"Here's good," Adrienne yawned, curling up on the couch. "Thanks. I appreciate this... so much."