My Life is my Vice (Tag: Adalrik)

The waters moved and swayed far, far below her. They listened so nicely, so soundly to what pushed them. They gave no argument, they just listened, silently and obediently, to what moved them and forced them to crash along the shore, taunting the water before pulling it back. It listened, and gave no complaint. Just like Anna Marie, listening and moving without a word of defiance. She complained to no one and said nothing.

She sat on the long, wooden stairs that led down to the dock. Every plan in her head had failed. She had told herself that she could make it without it, but that hadn't worked. She told herself that she didn't always need it. She lied then, too. And now, she said that she'd make it to the dock, for only one quick shot to soothe her shivers, but Anna Marie had barely made it halfway down the wooden steps, before she collapsed, shrinking into her own, weakened body.

Her breaths were short and hard, and her fingers were anything but stable. How could she do anything for herself? But she knew it all, the saddest of everything, she knew what was best for her in each side effect she had. She knew when the pills were best, when smoking was best, and even when needles were best. Her eyes were bloodshot and Anna Marie felt sick to her stomach, like she couldn't eat anything even though for days her appetite was lost.

Out of her pocket came an unknown powder, perfectly white and crisp, and so innocent in appearance. It looked just like snow. But there was no much sin in this small, small bag, and so much death. Anna Marie hated what she didn't, but when she was thrown into states like these, thinking wasn't something she knew well anymore.

The grounds of Hogwarts were large, it was true, but they did not strike any chord of amazement in Adalrik. Sure the forest was adequately foreboding, the fields carefully groomed, and the mountains in the background picturesque, but it didn't have the harsh quality that he admired. There wasn't enough grit and danger. Adalrik wasn't afraid that his next step would be his last. It just wasn't to his liking.

Still, it was better than the interior of the castle. Inside were sniveling little kids with nothing better to do than race around with their rich  noses in the air and mock the rest of the world with their snotty laughing. If there wasn't a large sum of money as a prize for winning the Triwizard Tournament Adalrik would have opted to stay at Durmstrang. In fact, he would have opted to not complete his education at all. He had learned all he was going to learn at school already and he was eager to join the real world. Well, perhaps not eager, but ready. He already knew more about life than any of the students he was forced to be around.

The Black Lake stretched before him as he jogged his way across the grounds. Just because he was somewhere new did not mean he could slack off in his training. His footfalls were heavy on the frosted ground, his breath visible puffs in the cold air.

As he approached the stairs to the dock Adalrik caught sight of motion halfway down. Someone was sitting on the stone steps, head down and curled into a tight ball. He had not seen anyone since leaving the castle, it was a cold morning and the mist was still wafting off the lake. His pace slowed until he was walking down the stairs one by one. The closer he got the more he could make out. The figure was a girl, her hair a mess around her inclined head. She appeared to be shaking, probably because of the cold.

Adalrik was about to go tell her to get back into the castle, it was obviously too chilly outside for her, when he spotted what was in her hand. There was no mistaking it, he knew the substance too well. Memories flooded unwanted into his mind and Adarik's temperature began to rise.

He was right behind her now, towering above her, all muscle and intimidation. “What do you think you're doing?”

Her hand, shakily and weakly gripped the powder, hiding it from sight as the boy appeared behind her, his voice threatening in Anna Marie's ears. No one should have been outside, not at this hour or in this weather. The other students had always been so scared to come out, unless that was snow in the training grounds, which even then that had been so far away. There was no sun today, it was cloudy and gray and everything about it was meant to appeal to no one. Yet, he was out, and he was here.

"P-please...go away..."

Her voice, weakened, shook just like every inch of her body, but Anna Marie never felt the cold. All that she felt was her sight, slowly starting to fade, her weakened body craving only one thing, and nothing else. There was nothing that Anna Marie could do at this point, she was beyond help. She grew up in a place that was beyond help. She thought that Hogwarts could help, that it would help, she even believed that magic could fix her. But addictions were different then magic, especially those that started even before she was born.

The only thought that surrounded her was that of the powder, the little bit of potion, but the longer she waited, the more and more that she'd need. It simply wouldn't be enough. Her pale skin and white finger nails were crushed under the weight of simple gravity, and she felt herself caving in, just as she always had, only now her wait was so much more painful. The tears came to the corners of her bloodshot eyes, where she now closed them tightly, wishing only for it all to end. She just wanted the boy to leave, to go away and forget what he had seen. She wasn't confrontational, and all that Anna Marie had wanted was to be alone, now and forever.

When she died, she didn't want to have to be missed.

There were tears forming in the corners of her eyes, growing large and filling them to the brim. Soon it was too much for her lids to handle and the orbs of salty water ran down her face leaving streaks of agony behind. Adalrik was reminded of the times his mother had looked the same, when her face was tear stained and sallow. How she had cried! Some days it seemed to never end, her wails of misery filling their tiny house. The worst had been when they had found him. She would not stop sobbing for days. Adalrik thought that surely her body would run dry and she would shrivel up.

He shook his head, cleared his mind of the filth invading it. Instead of thinking of the past he looked down to the girl, defending her hidden stash with frail arms. He could break her in two if he wanted. She looked to be made of parchment, so small and tender. That was what it did to you, he knew. She could have been beautiful, strong, but instead she chose this. This emaciated form that craved no nourishment besides what stopped her shaking. It made Adalrik sick to look at her.

“Give it to me,” he demanded, ignoring her request to leave. Like hell he would leave. Not until this was settled.

Her shaking did not instil pity nor compassion in Adalrik, but a fuming anger. Here she was, attending the most prestigious magical school in history with her whole life ahead of her, and she was throwing it all away. Her habits no doubt controlled her, affected her family, her friends. Yet still she chose this. How could someone chose a feeling over their life?

A tinge of sorrow invaded Adalrik's thoughts. He saw clearly his fathers laughing face, healthy and full of love for his son. The image fueled his rage as he imagined this girl traveling the same path. He would put an end to this. One way or another, she would not be leaving with the drugs.

"I can't..."

Her voice shook as she spoke, quietly, every part of her body fighting her to keep the bag that would take only a gush of air to set free. Her body was so weak, yet her mind told her to be strong. She needed it, she didn't have a choice but to need it. Anna Marie never had a choice, not since the day she was born. She was given a life that was forced upon her, and she didn't think that she could have possibly started over. Not when her life was taken from her even before she had a life.

Choking, Anna Marie whispered very, very softly, talking to herself in pain on the thought of her mother. She was the woman who made her like this, but Anna Marie never hated her for it. She never hated anyone or blamed anyone. Life was given, and you were to receive.

"Mother won't give me more unless I'm home..."

Anna Marie pictured her home, what any other child would never consider to be a home. The apartment building was old, covered in graffiti and threatening to fall at any day. The railings were rusted through on the stairway up, the walls succumbing to rot. Three flights, she had to walk up, hearing those awful noises that she knew her mother made when she wasn't home. Scary men lined every hall, and she hated looking into their faces as she slowly made her way up the stairs, and down the hall until she reached the apartment door that was given to her mother. As long as she did what she was told, and as long as she remained beautiful and could bring in customers, and please them, they could keep the apartment. It was the apartment that Anna Marie was both conceived in and born in, by a man that he mother didn't know and that she will never meet.

Even here she could smell the stench of the place, smelling like dead animals, alcohol, and every drug out there. This place was full of fumes, and Anna Marie believed that it could catch fire any minute. She'd open a door to a 'home' that did not belong to her. To one bed that belonged more to her mother and strange men than it did to her. She even remembered the one night, where a man in the hallway offered her a job, just like her mother. He told her that she could grow up to be just like her, taken care of, and pleasing other people. That everyone would like her. But Anna Marie was 10, and she hated the smell.

That was when she had gotten her letter, and she was sent off to Hogwarts. Her muggle mother was hardly coherent at the time, and had no idea that the school was for students who had magic. So her father must have been a wizard, hadn't he?

The girl refused his demand, not shockingly. While any sane girl, alone and threatened by a large male, would give in this one did not. Said she could not. It was likely that was how she felt. Her words had echos in Adalrik's memory. How many times his father had spoken the same thing was countable. Every other word from his mouth was 'I can't' in the later years. I can't play with you, Adalrik. I can't work today, Adalrik. I can't get food for us, Adalrik. I can't stop...

Bull. He could have stopped, and so could she.

“Did I say I cared what your mother will or won't do?” He leaned to her level, his face even with hers. There was nothing in his eyes except the ice that coated them, sharp and cold. He could see the tears still flowing down her face clearly, see the her blood shot eyes twitching almost imperceptibly. The lines that would crease her face soon if she kept up her addiction were superimposed in Adalrik's vision. She morphed from a young girl to an older woman, decrepit and dying.

Adalrik didn't care that her mother was involved in his. He didn't care for her future. If she was giving drugs to her daughter she was already dead to him. He also didn't care about her or the girl's past. How she got into this mess was not important to him. She was stupid and made stupid choices, like any other idiot out there. What mattered was that she stopped.

Why Adalrik was so intent on this was a complicated issue. He was not one to help others or get involved in a strangers life. If he had seen the girl with a knife to her wrist he would have walked on. The taunting sight of the drugs, though, and he was dead set on fixing her. While he tried to disguise his concern with rage and tough words somewhere deep, deep within him were dreams of a happy home, a living father. Even if Adalrik didn't realize his motives, they were there.

“Now be a good girl and hand it over. Do you really think I'm going to leave you alone?” Venom dripped with Adalrik's words, so soft and deadly.

Anna Marie did what she could to stand up on her shaky legs that were nearly white, as she had on only a skirt and she was facing both the cold and her withdrawal. She didn't like the boy, not at all. He was being mean to her, scaring her, and making her feel like the nothing she already thought that she was. Anna Marie only wanted to leave, she wanted to feel safe and alone, in a corner somewhere that no one would find her.

As she tried to back up the stairs, away from the boy, her weak legs did not lift nearly as high as she had thought they would, and so she caught the first stair, not being able to make it very far, and fell right back down onto the cold, hard step. She cried a little bit more, letting go of the drugs and allowing them to fall , possibly to fall right into the waters. She didn't care anymore, it wasn't enough and it would only hurt her more. She'd need something that she hated to do, that was much more powerful, and she wasn't even sure she could do it alone with shaky fingers.

She sat there, water freezing to her face as she cried, her body shaking everywhere as she rolled herself into an unseen ball. She wasn't crying over the drugs being lost, in fact, she didn't know what she was crying about. All she felt was everything breaking down, and so the streams came without a pin point of a reason. Maybe she could just die out here, right now. Her mother would have probably forgotten her, as she always seemed to when Anna Marie came through the door of the apartment. She watched as her appearance clicked in her mother's eyes after a few minutes, and only then was she welcomed with open arms.

There were so many thoughts rushing through her mind, that she couldn't keep any of them straight anymore. She knew in the end that she would need the drug, and it was only a matter if she could get to it or not. That was all that there was for Anna Marie, every other detail didn't matter. She could get it, and then her life would go back to what it was, or she could sit here, let herself shake and die. Anna Marie had forgotten all about the boy.

He was watching the girl completely deconstruct before his eyes. Her whole body was shaking as if in the midst of a seizure. The loud halting sobbing coming from her broke the hush of the grounds and filled it with pain. She was curled tight into a ball, rocking back and forth. It was a pitiful sight, and one that Adalrik was much too familiar with.

There were so many times he had stood hidden behind a couch or a wall as his father shut down, just like this. As a small child he wanted to run to his father and help him, stop his shaking and crying. Adalrik had always been too frightened, though, to leave his hiding spot. As he grew older his urge to help left him and all he could do was look upon the scene with disgust.

She had dropped the bag of pure white powder and he stooped to retrieve it. Such a small bag and innocuous contents could do so much harm, could reduce a person to this sniveling mass in front of him. It was then he noticed her bare legs and lack of a warm coat. Her lips, partially hidden behind her hands, were blue, as were the very tips of fingers. She must have been out here for quite some time and the freezing temperatures were starting to shut her body down.

Still bent down next to her Adalrik considered his options. He had what he wanted; he could leave. If he did, though, this girl very well may die right were she was. In her drug withdrawal frenzy she must not even notice hypothermia advancing. Looking around Adalrik spotted a small hut not far from the lake. Inside he could conjure a fire and let her warm up, and also search her clothes for more of the drug, which he was fairly certain she had.  

With a sigh of resignation Adalrik scooped the girl into his arms and began the walk to the hut. She was feathers in his strong arms, nothing more than air and skin. Her trembling body was as cold as snow to his touch. He almost thought she would melt away into nothing before he reached the haven of the inclosed room.

Her eyes fluttered at the sudden shift in motion, her body no longer laying on the cold ground but being held in the air, pressed against a warm body. She could feel the convulsions within her stomach, fighting her as she fought back. She felt like nothing but mush on the inside, and then...

With what energy she could muster, if it was even intentional at all, Anna Marie's body pushed itself out of Adalrik's arms and onto the ground, where she promptly threw up the only thing in her stomach, vile. There was no food in her body, and yet her body rejected even the idea of it even being inside of her. She could feel her insides being crushed, closing her heavy head onto the ground, her knees sinking into the dirt. Her hands were in the shape of fists, but nothing nearly as strong as one. She could feel herself breaking down, and there was only one thing to do. Or, one thing that she could think of doing.

In her pocket sat the needle, the only thing that could help her at this point. It was the liquid of a poisonous death, and yet it was the only thing that would keep Anna Marie alive right now. She thought of nothing but the needle, small and enclosed when she reached into her pocket, and without even take it out of her skirt pocket, turned it in on her own body, and pushed.

She knew it would be a while for it to work, being in her thigh. But her hands were too shaky and she had no chance of reaching her own, thin, bony arms with the thing. Anna Marie inhaled and exhaled deeply, the first time that she could breath more than her short and hard breaths. She felt better now, knowing that she had soothed herself, even though part of the result was dirty knees and hair tipped with vomit. She didn't care, and she didn't notice. All that she felt was the drug, coursing through her body slowly, fixing her from the monster she had become.

Coughing before she cried again, Anna Marie felt like a monster, and she couldn't take it. She was dying, and yet to keep herself alive she had to use something that only killed her more. This wasn't a life to live, and yet she saw no other choice. She was at rock bottom, the only difference was that she couldn't reach any ledge to help herself back up. She was born into the bottom of a well, with no way out.

Adalrik was taken by surprise as the girl wriggled her way out of his arms and fell to the frosted ground. She immediately began retching, throwing up thin foul smelling bile. He watched with deepening disgust as her long hair rested in the liquid. His disgust soon turned to fury as she slammed a needle into her leg, pushing the plunger deep.

“Damnit, I'm trying to help you!” He screamed down into her face, his rage unleashed. He bent down and grabbed a hold of her frail arm in his vise like grip and half pulled her up from the puddle of bile. He didn't care if he hurt her, now. She was already hurting herself so a little more pain wouldn't matter. If she even felt it. This time when he picked up the girl he swung her over his shoulder, arms tight around her legs as her head rested behind his shoulders. Let's see her try and escape from this one, Adalrik thought as he again made his way towards the hut. He just hoped no one saw him carrying the limp girl across the grounds.

He made it to the small building, crashed through the door and flung the girl onto the floor in front of a dusty fireplace. With no regard to how she landed he pulled out his wand, touched the dry wood in the fireplace and grunted, “Flagrante.” Flames burst from the logs and filled the room with their light and warmth. Adalrik took a moment to stare into the fire, its heat and intensity mirroring his inner turmoil. A fire raged inside of him too. It was consuming his mind and blurring his vision. Adalrik wanted to shake the girl laying there, drive her into the hard planked floor until she understood what she was doing. He wanted to see bruises form on her malleable skin and the look of fear in her eyes. Maybe then she would realize the error of her ways, how much harder her life could be.

His hands were trembling in fists at his side, the need to release his anger tingling through him. Instead of taking it out on the body on the floor he turned to the wall and let his fist make a solid hit. Blood began to ooze down his arm, dripping slowly into his coat. He tore it off and threw it at the girl.

“Put this on,” he barked. She needed to warm up. Adalrik couldn't stand to look at her blue lips any longer. They looked too much like his fathers had when he found him. He stood over the girl, staring down into her red eyes. He wondered if she could even hear his words or comprehend. The drug was likely taking effect by now and he had precious little time left to get any answers from her. “What's you name, girl?”

(Hahaha, sorry, I was kinda like "ehh, this is too pretty..." then read vomiting as a side effect so...<3333)

Anna Marie knew that she should have been feeling pain from being thrown on the ground, but she felt none. Dizzily, she sat up, oddly enough her mind growing more and more conscious of her surroundings, now that her hunger was satisfied. Her pupils now grew smaller, but her eyes became less and less red. She could feel certain symptoms going away, and others taking their place. No longer did her muscles ache, but now she could feel no pain at all. She felt tired, and yet her eyes remained awake.

She watched with glazed eyes as he punched the wall, and threw a coat at her. She shrinked away, legs crossed as she sat up on the floor. She didn't know him, and he was scary...but he gave her his coat. Very slowly she moved the coat around her shoulders, as if it weighed a ton, flashing the bruises and pin pricks that licked her arms. Anna Marie felt cold now, but her temperature was rapidly rising. The fire danced, too, before her eyes, and she almost felt entranced by it's glow. Until he spoke to her again.

"Why?"

She asked, not really wanting to answer him. He saw everything that she did, and she didn't want to be placed with a name to her actions. She was ashamed of it, but then the image of his anger flashed before her, the punching of the wall and the blood dripping, slowly, down his arm, onto the floor. She'd give him an answer if it could make him feel better.

"Anna Marie..."

Her gaze now lifted to his face, but it only stayed there for a second before her head dropped, staring at the blood down his arm. Drip, drip drip. She watched as it pattered onto the floor, creating a puddle. She reached into her pocket, not strong enough but stronger than she was before, and pulled out the bandages she usually used to cover any needle marks or new bruises. Her voice was hardly above a whisper, not out of addiction or usage, but out of her frightful and shy personality.

"Y...You need this..."

Now that he had her here, he wasn't sure what to do with her. He watched as she struggled to put on his coat. It was almost as big as her whole body. His face was impassive, his rage retreating as he felt the pain in his hand thud in time with his heart beat. Pain was the only thing that would abate his anger at times like this. He needed to feel the sharp pricks or deep aches to restore clarity.

When the girl on the floor mumbled out her name Adalrik had to lean in to hear her. Her voice was so quiet the room seemed to swallow it whole, reducing her to muteness. She avoided his eyes and face, instead becoming entranced with the blood seeping down his arm. He did not take the bandages she offered but instead waved them away with a gesture of his hand. He liked the way the blood felt rolling off his hand.

“I'm going to tell you a story, Anna Marie.” He sat down next to her on the floor, warmed by the fire. He grabbed her cheeks with his hand as she tried to look away and forced her eyes to met his. He wanted her looking at him for this. “You will pay attention. My father, and probably my mother, are dead. He is rotting and cold and forgotten and no one cares. Do you know why?” his fingers on her cheeks tightened, molding her flesh. “Because he was like you.”

Adarlik shoved her face back and stood up. He had no delusions that his words meant anything to her or that they would reach whatever life was left in her. He couldn't explain his burning need to see this girl stop her abuse. A storm of conflict was brewing in his mind and it was giving him a headache. He didn't like this side of him were feelings and emotions lived. They were useless and only served to get him into stupid situations like this.

He turned back to her, his voice rising again. “Why the hell are you doing this to yourself?”

Her face was pulled from where her attention once sat, staring at the fire, and now staring into the fiery eyes of the boy who had found her. She tried to look away, her eyes wandering what she could of the ceiling and the walls, but it was not long before she could look nowhere but the boy's face. He began to tell her a really, really short story. Nothing like that out of a fairytale book, with his fingers tightening on her face. Her eyes watered a little at the tightness, but ultimately she felt no pain at all, even she he shoved her back and she fully fell onto the floor. There was no pain in her body.

She twisted a little so that, even from where she laid on the floor, she could look at the boy with hazy eyes. Pity welled up inside of her, for him, but not enough for her to really feel much. He was accusing her of things that she felt were out of her control. He was blaming her for what his father did, taking his anger out on her and her weakened body. She wouldn't fight it, but she would not hold pity for someone as mean as him. She didn't want to be that kind of weak.

Then he asked her. Why? Because she had to. There really wasn't much that she could say to that, so she decided to mimic him. It was easier for her, that way. Her brain could put sentences together easily, repeating him and repeating in her head what she had for years and years. The words were not hard to form in her mind, but hard to form on her lips.

"Do you want to hear a story? Of a girl born in a whore house to a mother and no father. Addicted before she even had her first breath."

She started into the dancing flames as she spoke, allowing the warmth to overcome her body. She felt hot now, too hot, her cheeks were red and her forehead burning up. She closed her eyes now, not asleep, but she felt too weak to keep them open. Anna Marie took very hard and short breaths again, occasionally trying to take a large one, but her body rejected her pleads.

"I live with what I was given..."

She whispered, trailing off as she did. She was still awake, still alive, but even the words seemed to hurt her as tears welled in her eyes.

Anna Marie's story did little to stir emotion in Adalrik. He had already decided he didn't care what her past was. It was the past after all and there was nothing to be done about it. Her words after, though, struck a chord in him.

Lived the life she was given? If Adalrik had ever heard any worse bullshit before in his life this was it. She wasn't living, she was dying. What more, she was passively letting her life suffocate her and doing nothing at all it halt its progress. Adalrik was a firm believer in the the free will of life. You chose your own life, your own path. No matter what, no matter how terrible the world you were born into was, you could claw and scratch and fight your way out.

He had. His father could have. Anna Marie could. And she would, if Adalrik had anything to do with it.

“You really think you're alive? You're not living anything.” He crouched next to her again and stared into her eyes. “You want to die or you want to live, little girl? And I don't mean this sick imitation of life you're clinging to.”

Adarlik took a deep breath, knowing his next words were coming from that dark forgotten corner of his heart that he had shut out long ago. His out shell, devoid of emotion and memories, was about to be parted for this crying girl he had just met. It astounded him, but as the thoughts he had harbored as a child rushed forth his motives were made clear to him. He could not help his father and Adalrik, deep in his mind, had always felt guilty and at fault for his death. If there was even the slightest hope of stopping that tragedy from happening again he would do his best and finally be able to let his heart be at peace.

When he spoke again his voice had lost most of its rage, the left over fire in him burning low but ready to spark back at little notice, “I will help you.”

She well knew that Adalrik had very, very different thoughts from hers. And that was okay, for he was not the same person that she was. They were different people, living different lives, and they each had a right to their own thoughts and opinions, even a right to judge, on some level. Anna Marie never believed that anyone should have one train of thinking, or that someone was right and the other was wrong. She understood that life was different to every person, and thus not all could apply to those living out there. It was what you made of it, and what you choose. People did not have the right to decide for you what you should choose though, and that was where she wished to no longer listen to Adalrik.

Instead, Anna Marie decided to close her eyes, and let herself get lost in what she could, while she could. The drugs no longer effected her the way they did so many others. If she had wanted to be, she could feign a very sane girl, recovering from a cold with few symptoms, but she was able to speak and think on a very similar level to her previous self. Yes, it was different, because she was ill with addiction, but she was immune to the effects that made her appear to be clearly on drugs. Although she was not full and functioning to what was her potential, she functioned all the same, and that was all she cared for.

She saw the splatter of colors from where she fire once entered her eyes, leaving images and trails for her to follow. It was a calming feeling as she tuned out Adalrik, and although she heard him claiming that he'd help her, she tried to ignore it. But she could feel the sincerity in his voice, and she couldn't will herself to be such a mean spirit. Anna Marie took a breath, her eyes still closed, and thought on what to say. If she said that she didn't need his help, she was positive that he'd become upset again, just like earlier. But what could she say to please him?

"I only want to dream right now, and you will be gone in a week where your help will be miles away."

Just like that, the anger was back. This time, though, he did not let it explode outwards in bursts of flame but quietly smolder in the pit of his body. She wanted to dream her life away in a drug addled haze? Fine. He had offered and done his best and she had rejected it. This sign of weakness and stupidity on her part was no fault of his own.

His eyes turned down to her laying on the floor with unbridled disgust. The care he had just felt for her was far away, devoured by his anger at her refusal. She may be right in that he would be gone in a weeks time but she did not know him. She did not know that when he promised something he did it. Although usually his promises were of a more sinister nature, they were kept nonetheless.

Huddling on the wood floor with her eyes shut tight Anna Maire looked to be dying. Her breath came in halting gusts that barely moved her chest up and down. What if when he took the drugs away her weakened body could not sustain itself? She could easily pass from this word to the next due to lust for the drugs. If she wasn't going to take his help in getting better he was going to have to tell her schools Headmistress. She would be forced, then. They would look after her. Adalrik was not going to let this girl die, one way or another.

“Give me the rest of the drugs you have on you. All of them. And don't think that if you don't I won't strip you down and take them myself. Just do this the easy way.”