• There was something about the junkies that was beautiful to me. Despite the fact that physically, they were something to avoid… their skin always tasted of sweat or makeup, and the strange smells that they tended to carry around with them weren’t something to search out, but that was the majority of us. Whether we were addicted to some poison or not, we weren’t in the best stages of our hygiene.

    Maybe it was their dedication that seemed to draw me to them. While their stomachs were burning with acid and twisting in hunger, they would ignore it. While their heads were pounding with the crash of their last hit, they would ignore it. Everything got put on hold until their hunger for whatever drug of choice was coursing through their popping veins.

    Maybe it was their quirks. Tomas, no matter how hard I was on him, was one of my favorite people just to be around. He was constantly pushing the impermanence of flesh, piercing barbells through his ears, left eyebrow, lower lip, nose, and tongue. His favorite toy was his trusty scissors, and as he sat behind the hotel desk clicking steel against his teeth, he was greeting customers with bleeding wrists of strangely cut patterns. And giggles. All the junkies moaned, but he was the only one I heard uncontrollably giggle.

    Maybe it was their reactions to the drugs. No matter how repulsive they were normally, as soon as their hisses of pain were bit back as sharp needles pierced skid-marked arms, they were flying. Gorgeous. Something changed. Suddenly Emily and Violet, with their protruding ribs and dark eyes, were bizarre doe-eyed girls with something to be desired. Blaze, who only tried it once, his dark skin glowed with something else than his usual fire, shiny with a thin sheen of sweat and eyes unfocused. Tomas with all his quirks was an outlandishly graceful boy when he was high, twisting and contorting his body while he mumbled nothings against my ear.

    Nothing about them should be beautiful. I was the only one who never tried it, didn’t want to try it, and tried to avoid it. But for some reason the thought of them followed me, and contrary to the anger I felt that they never could make themselves stop… gods, I was glad they could never make themselves stop. It wasn’t something that should be stopped.
    Even though the guards on drugs were boorish and spiteful, the addicts that roamed the alleyways were something else.

    They were at their best when they were spinning out of control.