Chapter Text
All I have in life is my new appetite for failure
I got hunger pains that grow insane, tell me does that sound familiar?
If it do then you're like me, making excuses that your relief
Is in the bottom of the bottle and the greenest indo leaf.
Swimming Pools - Kendrick Lamar
‘The Valiant Abstinent’ Inpatient Rehabilitation Centre,
Lamentis, United Kingdom.
9:07am, Tuesday 27th July 2021
“Hi. I’m Loki. I’m new here.”
Thirteen pairs of eyes stare blankly back at him. “As I’m sure you’re all aware.”
“Why don’t you tell us a little about yourself, Loki?” chirrups the meeting’s chairperson, Missy, a tiny, red-headed woman with an impossibly bright disposition.
He puts his best efforts into a courteous smile while his brain scrambles frantically for something to say. Introducing oneself is always so much easier to do with a cocktail in hand - or one in each - but there’s not a cat in hell’s chance of that here.
“I’m from London. I work in the business sector. I’m adopted, and I enjoy Scrabble.” He grins at Missy, affecting his most charming tone of voice. “Will that do?”
“What brings you here, Loki?” she beams back, all shining teeth and a veneer of cheerfulness that’s almost menacing in its delivery.
He gulps but doesn’t let his smile drop.
“My father is keen for me to follow in his footsteps at our family business. He’s a serious, old-fashioned sort - thought it would be best for me to rein in some of my more hedonistic pastimes.”
“And how long have you been sober?”
Since approximately 3:47pm yesterday when the humour in this ridiculous situation ran dry and gave way to a gin hangover.
“Oh, um, let me think now. I’d say… two days. Two days? Not yesterday, the day before. Well, night before.”
“And how are you feeling?”
Itchy. Agitated. Pissed off at all the staring.
“Peachy keen, Missy. Thank you so much for asking.”
“That’s alright. I think that’ll do for now.” Please let me go, please let me go, say it’s over. “Feel free to take your seat, Loki.”
He tilts his head, letting out an inaudible sigh through his teeth still bared in a painful smile, and sinks back into the uncomfortable wooden chair. He’s in this for the long haul, it seems.
“I’m sure we’re all very excited to welcome a newcomer into our midst. Why don’t we show Loki how it’s done? Who would like to start today? Let’s go with… Casey!” Missy sings, turning towards a man with dark hair who is slightly hunched over in his seat. Loki quickly recognises him as his roommate - the one who spent half the night sniffling into his pillowcase. He is currently clutching a bundle of soiled Kleenex in his fist.
Casey swallows, nodding weakly and sits up a little straighter. In warbling tones, he declares, “Hi, I’m Casey. I’m an alcoholic.”
The rest of the room echoes back, “Hi Casey,” causing Loki to jump a little.
“Pleased to meet you again, Loki,” he says, nodding at him and looking perilously close to tears at the gesture. Loki grimaces in response, for the life of him unable to conjure another fake simper. “He’s my new roommate,” Casey explains to the room at large. “It’s nice to have someone else around since Korg graduated. It’s been kinda lonely at night. I really miss that big guy.”
It is at this point that Casey does indeed begin to sob, raising his tissues to his face and blowing his nose with a loud honk. Loki can’t help but stare incredulously at him.
Twelve weeks of this to go.
“I - I have fourteen days today,” Casey chokes out before hunching over and giving way to more shivering sobs.
“Well done, Casey,” Missy praises gently, several others in the room echoing the sentiment. “Let’s move on to somebody else. Sylvie, how about you?”
His eyes fall on Missy’s next victim, a small woman with wavy, blonde hair and pixyish features. She is looking at her hands, fingers entwined, elbows resting on her knees as she leans forwards, shoulders hunched slightly, though not in the same manner that Casey’s had been. It looks almost like she is preparing to strike, as if she is constantly on guard for some kind of attack. She looks like predator and prey all at once.
Tilting her chin up to face the room and gazing into the middle distance, she says, “I’m Sylvie and I’m an alcoholic.”
“Hi Sylvie,” the group echoes again.
“I have twenty seven days. I woke up early, took a class, had a good breakfast. If I wasn’t here, I’d probably just be getting back home around this time, and I’m really glad that isn’t the case.” She purses her lips and the silhouette of her tongue moves beneath her pale cheek. “There’s a lot I have to be thankful for, being here. Outside, I’d be working all hours, drinking all night to forget the day. I wouldn’t have good meals, because I’d be too hungover to make them. And I’d be alone, whereas here, at least I feel like people understand me a little better.” She inclines her head to the group at large without actually looking at anyone before continuing.
“It’s a gift for someone like me to be here. No one put me in this place; I did it myself. I knew that things were really starting to snowball and if I didn’t do something about it, I’d end up - well. I had to make a choice about what I wanted from life, about what’s precious to me.” She pauses and he finds himself strangely preoccupied with the smooth line of her jaw.
“I don’t know who my parents are; I don’t have any family. I’ve been on my own my whole life. I wish someone had given enough of a shit about me to strong-arm me into rehab, but they didn’t, so I had to take care of myself. I had to push through and make that decision for me. I had to convince myself to survive.” Loki’s eyes narrow as he listens, a little crease forming in his brow. “The longer I’m sober, the more fiercely I feel like I have to protect it. There are some people who don’t take this seriously, and they’re the ones who can afford to treat it like a joke. But it’s not a joke. It’s my life, and no one will take that away from me, especially not alcohol.”
She shifts back into her original position, mumbling, “Pass.”
“Thanks Sylvie,” the rest of the room chimes, and once again he starts a little at the chorus of voices, though this time it isn’t because it is unexpected, more that he has been so enraptured by what the woman had been saying.
She hadn’t looked at him once, but there isn’t a doubt in his mind that she had intended that little monologue for his ears alone.
The fucking nerve.
The whole, long-winded affair goes on in much the same way for the next hour. Each person introduces themselves, despite presumably already being known by their fellows as this is a ritual they repeat every day, and each time they follow their name with their sobriety status. Loki tries to appear courteous, turning to look at each individual speaker as they bemoan their issues surrounding self-control and describe in excruciating, wallowing detail about all the ways in which the demon drink has negatively impacted their lives.
Inwardly, however, he can’t get his mind off Sylvie and her little demonstration.
Clearly, the woman has a bee in her bonnet concerning his presence here. He’d been perfectly polite while he’d spoken to the group, he thinks, so why should she feel such an instantaneous animosity towards him?
At the top of the hour, to Loki’s acute feeling of relief, Missy wishes everyone a good day and a chipper, “See you tomorrow! Same time, same place!”
He doesn’t think he’s ever stood up so quickly in his life, but once he is on his feet, he isn’t quite sure what to do with himself. Leaving seems like the obvious solution, but people seem to be milling around somewhat. It takes him a moment to realise that they are all picking up their chairs and stacking them at the far edge of the room, so he mimics them with little fanfare. See, I can be part of the gang; just another alcoholic like the rest of you, sheep’s clothing or not.
He catches sight of Sylvie moving promptly towards the door and on impulse, he darts forward to catch her up. Out in the corridor, he matches her stride and fashions on his face the most charismatic of smiles. It feels like drawing a dagger.
“Hi,” he says smoothly to announce himself. “Loki. We haven’t properly been introduced.”
She keeps walking and doesn’t so much as glance at him.
“I know who you are.”
Well.
Deciding to throw in the towel on false niceties, he allows the smile to drop quickly from his face and says in a much cooler tone, “Pretty speech.”
“Pretty? You think so?” she asks, still refusing to meet his gaze.
“Sharing is important, or so I’m told.”
“Glad you took something from it.”
“Though if you don’t mind me divulging my humble opinion, wouldn’t you agree it’s all a little self-pitying?”
It’s the wrong - or right, depending on which way he looks at it - thing to say. She comes to a crashing halt in the middle of the hallway and at last, turns her furious gaze on him for the first time. Her eyes are deep blue, like a reflection of the dusk sky on a clear lake. It pins him, strikes a match inside him, though he isn’t sure which part of his body is burning.
“Listen to me, rich boy,” she hisses, taking a threatening step towards him. “You might not take any of this seriously. You drink because it’s fun - because it makes you feel like a little god. Your daddy put you in here so you could clean up your act, so you could - what? Inherit the family business? Just a little investment to ensure the survival of old money and power. You’ll play the good little boy for a few weeks, get the family stamp of approval, and then get right back to your old ways. We don’t all have the luxury of being able to enjoy our vices. You can go in and out and in and out of these treatment centres as many times as you like, because you can afford it. I get one chance. You get to live, I get to survive, and by fuck, I will.”
He raises his eyebrows, begrudgingly impressed at both her perception and her eloquence. Though, she had misread one particular aspect of his character. “Actually, I only get one chance too.”
“Aw,” she simpers theatrically, cocking her head to the side and pouting. “Did Daddy threaten to cut you off? Welcome to real life. Go through the motions and act like it’s a hardship. Meanwhile, stay the fuck away from me.”
Her words are vitriolic, utterly unforgiving; it’s kind of nice for someone to be so open about their disdain for him when usually, in his world, it’s all veiled microaggressions and simpering insincerity.
“I’m flattered,” he murmurs, dipping his head to peer into those eyes like fiery icicles. “You think my mere existence is enough to put your recovery in jeopardy? What a villain I must seem to you.”
She snarls. “You’re not important enough to be a villain; you’re just a fucking tourist. You don’t belong here where the real people are, the ones who know pain, who know true hardship. You’re a good actor, clearly; you can shapeshift into a facsimile of a person who’s suffered, but I see you.”
Oh, but she’s got teeth .
“You think you know me?” he asks malevolently, flashing her a lopsided grin.
“I don’t care to know you,” she replies evenly. “But I’ve seen your type. It’s people like you that drive people like me to this illness. You hoard all the money and power for yourself and leave the rest of us to fight over scraps in the dirt.”
“Again,” he huffs a low laugh. “You credit me with so much. I’m sure it makes your conscience a little easier to blame your failings on ‘someone like me’, but consider your free will, perhaps. Can I be held responsible for the choices of everyone in that room we just left? Surely you can’t blame me for all of that? If I’m so deficient in what you think merits a person a place at this facility, then tell me what it is you have that I don’t. Maybe you can teach me how to suffer properly ? You got yourself here without anyone else’s help after all, as you said.”
“What’s clear to me is that you’re deficient in basic human decency. You’re a snake. You don’t belong here.”
Deep cut.
He draws in a breath to steady himself. It wouldn’t do to lose his cool in front of her, or any of the other wretches locked in her with him. “Are you done?” he asks softly.
“We are done,” she spits back before turning on her heel and striding away down the corridor. He watches her go.
“Nice to meet you! We should do this again sometime!” he calls after her, unable to resist getting in the last word. To his amusement, she raises a hand above her head and flips him the bird without looking back. It’s strangely gratifying, getting under her skin, like needling his brother but somehow even more satisfying in its results .
He remains standing there alone until she disappears round the corner at the end of the hall. Unexpectedly, he feels a little hollow once she is out of sight, and he realises that a part of him wishes she were still laying into him.
At least it had been a frank conversation.
Running a hand through his hair and bolstering himself with a heavy sigh, he follows her down the corridor, though at a much slower pace. The A4 sheet of paper given to him upon his arrival yesterday and detailing his timetable dictates that after morning Group follows a one on one session with his own personal shrink.
He’s never been to therapy. In his opinion, such a practice is more for the likes of Charlie Sheen, or housewives with a secret cocaine habit. He prides himself on being extremely self-aware; he doesn’t have anything to prove, nor does he have anything to gain from airing his minor grievances to a stranger with a framed piece of paper hanging on the wall of their office and calling themselves a doctor.
Suffice to say, he is decidedly not looking forward to the experience.