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Getting high is not Allelujah's favorite thing to do, for the most part. The one exception to that rule is methylenedioxymethamphetamine, or MDMA. Or, as most people know it, ecstasy.
Allelujah Haptism fucking loves E. He'd live and breathe and maybe hump it, if such things weren't completely impossible. Also, there is Hallelujah, and Hallelujah does not allow Allelujah any MDMA except for as a reward. A treat, even, if he's been well-behaved and letting himself get fucked up against-- okay, alright, Hallelujah also allows Allelujah to have MDMA if he's not letting himself get fucked up against any available surface.
Which is something that happens as well: Allelujah goes through bouts of not wanting anyone to be near him, typically after he has nightmares about the Super Soldier Institute. Hallelujah responds by getting near Allelujah anyway, and if Allelujah starts freaking out then Hallelujah shoves some MDMA down his throat, followed closely by cock.
Then Hallelujah fucks him, brutally. Allelujah likes it, and everybody's satisfied. That is the way it was, once.
The way it is now is this: Al Haptism doesn't do drugs. He's fearful of what memories will get dragged up. Al's also scared he'll like the memories and want to go back.
***
Drugs and Lyle don't, on the whole, mix.
He doesn't smoke pot, because he doesn't smoke. He drinks, but not that often, and always to excess. Anything else... the question to ask is: who forbid him first? Neil, or Halle?
The answer is usually Neil. Cocaine, meth, heroin. A few of the more esoteric uppers came later, and Halle explained patiently that if Lyle wanted to put things in his body that didn't belong there, he had plenty of better ideas. Most of them were sharp and pointy rather than chemical in nature.
Nowadays, Lyle turns everything down but alcohol.
***
Ali sells drugs. He does not, generally speaking, do drugs.
He does, however, give drugs to his sons. They should want the drugs more than him: whoring is often gross and memorably unpleasant and the bruises that they come home with prove it. But they don't ask for anything. Better that way, actually, because making them beg for the drugs that they have no desire for is enjoyable.
Also, Ali likes to fuck Setsuna when Setsuna's all glass-eyed and writhing because the drugs strip away his carefully constructed defenses. He thinks that times like this-- times when Setsuna's gasping and arching his back and begging with one breath then cursing Ali with the next--are the only times he truly sees his youngest son.
Saji is different--Saji gets drugs that wind him up. And, incidentally, make him do things like crawl into Ali's lap and hump Ali and it's easy to guess where that goes. Ali does enjoy it when Saji cries, to be sure, but he enjoys best the sight of Saji kneeling between Setsuna's legs, sucking his (half) brother off while his father fucks him.
Ali does not, by any stretch of the imagination, need drugs to get messed up.
***
Regene isn't addicted to anything. Except perhaps attention, but the shrink who told him that was also fucking Regene at the time. Such an excessive breach of professional conduct renders his opinion null and void.
Not that Regene hasn't done drugs. Regene will try everything once, especially if it looks fun, and it lends an air of artistic authenticity if you can talk at parties about how you did all the paintings for that latest exhibition while on a cocktail of crap that would have killed lesser beings.
Particularly when he found out that Tieria had some sort of ethics that prevented him leaving Regene lying passed out in a gutter, forcing him to help Regene get home. Regene's policies on drug-taking include the phrase "nothing that will stop me having rampant drug-fueled sex afterwards", and they've served him well so far.
Also fun: doing drugs to other people. The slightly smarter among Regene's party attendees (or as they call themselves, Regene's friends), have learnt to ask what the punch is spiked with, rather than if there's anything in it.
It's a pity he couldn't have gotten hold of Saji Crossroad for a longer period of time, long enough to get him hooked on something with really interesting, photogenic withdrawal symptoms. Ah well; it's not like there's a shortage of stupid pretty boys in the world. He'll just have to try that one on someone else.
***
Setsuna and Saji don't generally do drugs, unless you count the amount of impressive amount of beer Setsuna and Halle can put away on a summer afternoon. Mostly the assumption is that they avoid that stuff because of Ali, and bad childhood memories.
And there is that, but--
To be perfectly honest, the real reason Setsuna doesn't do drugs is that he doesn't see the point.
The real reason Saji doesn't is that Setsuna told him not to. That's not to say it never happens, only that on the odd occasions when it does, Setsuna makes the purchase, and then they retreat to their room and appear some time the next day, exhausted but looking fairly happy.
Saji would probably not like to know how some of his preferences in drug-of-choice align quite well with some of Regene's.
Setsuna never complains about how when Saji gets high, he steals all the pillows.
***
Tieria has tried a lot of different drugs. That is a product of having Regene for a brother. Somehow, and Tieria really doesn't want to know the sordid details, Regene always seemed to turn up with a bag full of something or other, and Tieria was curious enough to try most things first hand.
Of course, he didn't try everything that Regene proffered; that was a fool's game and Tieria was far from foolish (he also still had a clear memory of the time that one of Regene's 'friends' went blind for two weeks). No, before he took anything, Tieria would thoroughly research it first and carry out his own mental risk assessments; he was not going to endanger his health without knowing completely what he was getting himself into.
But Tieria wasn't a fan of most drugs. In many cases the risk to his health was too high (even with the extra layer of safety afforded by the nanomachines in his body), and the results were too low. They just weren't worth his time
There was one, however, which was different. It was fairly new on the market, and those in the know hailed it as the wonder drug. When Tieria looked into it, he discovered that most of the hype was true. There were no unpleasant side-effects. There was no risk of death or permanent damage. It was only mildly addictive. And when Tieria tried it, he realised that the high it gave was well worth a few small cravings.
Vaso-exciting dopamine activator. The kids on the street called it VEDA.
It was nothing short of pure pleasure in tablet form.
Tieria took VEDA on a regular basis for just over four years. He wasn't crazy with it, but measured; his dosage was careful and exact, and his intake was regular. He was in perfect control of the situation.
Only, it wasn't long before control started slipping. What Tieria hadn't taken into account was that the drug would have a different effect on his body than on the various test subjects documented in the research papers. The nanomachines in Tieria's brain worked to reduce irregular fluctuations in chemical composition at a far higher rate than that of a normal human. Tieria's body adapted too quickly. And Tieria soon found that he had to increase the dosage in order to receive the same level of stimulation. Every month, Tieria took more VEDA, and took it more frequently, but still the effects lessened.
Somewhere down the line, Tieria realised; he'd stopped taking VEDA in order to feel good. Now he was taking it to feel normal.
The turning point came four weeks before Tieria's eighteenth birthday. It was a Monday morning, and Neil must have been up early for some reason, because Tieria ran into him in the kitchen before Tieria had had his daily fix. Neil must have done something, like open the door the wrong way or something, because Tieria snapped. He had never shouted at one of his housemates like that before, or since. Tieria still shudders when he remembers the insults that he threw in Neil's direction on that day.
After that, Tieria knew that something had to be done. If he ever wanted to have a normal relationship, with Neil, or with anyone, if he ever wanted to feel human, Tieria was going to have to stop taking VEDA.
Luckily for Tieria, he is resolute. When he puts his mind to something, he sees it through to the end.
The next week Tieria stopped taking VEDA completely. He didn't try to wean himself off. He just stopped. Then he holed himself up in his room and waited for the withdrawal symptoms to kick in.
VEDA is only mildly addictive... for a certain dosage. This doesn't hold true if you end up taking as much as Tieria had gotten used to by the end.
No one, bar Regene, knew of Tieria's drug habit. No-one. For the whole week that Tieria spent going cold turkey, his housemates thought he had the flu.
Initially, Tieria could assuage their concerns by shouting through his bedroom door that he was coping fine. But it didn't last, and 24 hours in, Tieria found Neil standing on the threshold to his room with a glass of water and a bowl of chicken soup. Tieria didn't feel like eating. Tieria felt like the bedsheets were trying to crawl through his limbs. He didn't want anything to do with food. But Neil stayed, and he forced Tieria to eat a little, and when Tieria woke up a few hours later, he realised that Neil was still there.
Neil came back every day after that, seemingly understanding that Tieria didn't want to be left alone, even though Tieria hardly knew it himself. Sometimes Neil talked, sometimes he read, sometimes Tieria found him copying up notes from his classes. When Tieria pointed out that by staying in his room all day, Neil was missing out on important lectures, Neil just shrugged and said that it didn't matter. Tieria felt too weak to argue.
When the seven days were up, the withdrawal symptoms were gone. Tieria's not sure he would have been able to manage it without the unlooked-for support. But with Neil there, manage it he did; Tieria was successfully able to lose the crutch that he'd been leaning on for years.
It felt good not to be so dependent any more; it felt really good. And while Tieria still didn't feel quite human yet, he was at least, now, a few steps further down the path than he had been before. He wonders if there will ever be a way to let Neil know how truly thankful he is for that.
***
Four days before Neil's 18th birthday, a judge orders him to spend ten weeks in an inpatient addiction treatment facility. He's in court because he was caught with a baggie of cocaine in his pocket at school and he ended up with a possession charge.
The judge talks about the tragedy of Neil's childhood and how Neil has to overcome and Neil decides that saying 'I'll overcome on your face' would be counterproductive. He also wants to tell about how he's using the drugs for two reasons: so he won't have to think about 'overcoming' and so he won't continue to 'overcome', but it would be equally counterproductive.
The program doesn't really do it for him. Neil starts thinking about the fucking goddamn bastard who's still alive and whoring out underage kids and killing people and-- well, he relapses (their word, not his) in rehab. He spends an additional two weeks there.
He's eighteen when he gets out, and Lyle nearly overdoses on cocaine that night. Neil stays clean for one simple reason: he loves his brother more than he hates That Bastard.
***
Graham doesn't need to do drugs.
***
To tell the truth, Lasse doesn't even need to know what it is before he says yes. He has taken many a pill clueless as to what the effects would be, just because he wanted to get high. He blames his habit on his party days but he knows it's just an excuse: he's an escapist.
Everything works out fine, until he's getting out of the shower the day after unintentionally meeting (and, kind of slightly more intentionally, sleeping with) Regene. Lasse's going from the bathroom to his room with the towel riding low on his hips. Saji's there, and he smiles, but only momentarily. It disappears into thin air as Lasse turns toward his room and Saji doesn't finish the 'hey, Lasse' that he starts.
Lasse turns around to say something, comforting words maybe, but Saji's already gone.
That's when Lasse decides to quit drugs. Because, there's only so many times you can get high out of your mind on god knows what before you end up with a tattoo that has purple cocks and the words 'Property of Regene Regetta' on it. It's not even that big, but it's the thought that counts.
And the fact that Saji refuses to sleep with Lasse until Lasse gets the tattoo removed.
Drugs, Lasse decides, are bad.
***
Hallelujah Haptism will not touch anything harder than liquor and the occasional hallucinogen.
He'll tell you that his body is a fucking temple and he's very fucking careful what he puts in it; he'll tell you that he knows better ways to fucking have a good time, and he'll probably suggest one or two. He'll tell you that there's nothing more hilarious than watching Al do E, which is technically true, although not very relevant considering it hasn't been a regular event in years.
He won't tell you that it's none of your business, because that might imply he has something to hide.
He also won't tell you about the amphetamines the doctors at the Institute gave him to see what happens when you overclock a system that's already enhanced.
He won't tell you about the first time he tried uppers outside a research laboratory, and the trail of corpses he left behind him like breadcrumbs; he won't tell you that he only knows how many people he killed that day because he and Al saw it on the news a week later. Body count: 406. No survivors; no witnesses; no identifying evidence left at the crime scene, which spanned numerous streets and ten floors of an office building.
Nothing on Earth could compel him to tell anyone about the first time he ever had a screaming nightmare, when the combination of catching Lyle with a familiar-smelling syringe and going to bed covered in blood prompted him to relive all four hundred and six of them, each wearing his boyfriend's face. He woke up to the sound of his own anguished wails and cried with relief when he found Lyle more or less whole.
Luckily, their relationship provided a ready-made explanation for both the screaming and the ensuing sobs. Halle only felt a little bit like another murderous rampage when Neil banged on their floor (his ceiling) with a broom, grumpily informing them that some people actually liked to sleep at three in the morning; Lyle kissed Halle's forehead and hugged him close and didn't ask a single question.
"Still yours," he whispered.
"Damn right you are," Halle whispered back, burying his tear-streaked face in the blanket over Lyle's chest.
And that would have been the end of it, except for the sleepy question mark that brushed against the edge of Halle's thoughts. He sat bolt upright, halfway out of bed before he noticed what he was doing, returning Tieria's query with a wordless slam of his mental doors. His head was full of static and the remembered taste of blood. More than anything, he wanted to kill the asshole who'd dared to overhear his quantum-broadcast nightmare.
Lyle sat up, too. He didn't say anything, just slid one arm loosely around Halle's waist and leaned his head on Halle's shoulder. Halle stayed like that, tensely, for the space of a few more breaths. If anyone in the house had made a sound...
But they didn't. The only thing that happened was Al reaching out to Halle with quantum brainwaves, more hesitant than Tieria because he was more aware of the dangers involved. Halle connected with him, felt the echo of Lasse's arms around Al's waist, and heard Al murmur: "Just Lyle and Halle being Lyle and Halle. Go back to sleep."
Fucking nightmares, he sent gratefully.
Tell me about it, Al replied. Halle felt him try to stop the are you okay? from following. It was a lost cause.
He snuggled back down and rested his head on Lyle's chest. Warm fingertips brushed tears from his cheek. I'll be fine, he answered, and he was.
***
When it comes to drugs, Patrick's taken just about everything: coke, crack, smack, whizz, fizz, buzz, skunk, skank, shank, dope, shit, cake, snake, slap, uppers, downers, lefters, righters, poppers, snappers, clappers and whack.
He's taken Es. And Fs, which are like Es only stronger. Fuck, one time he even went as far as Js!
Js
It doesn't take a huge intellect to realise that these are all lies.
The truth is: Patrick is actually quite careful about his health. He needs it for his job; they don't let you fly if you're not in top shape. So Patrick stays away from anything that might be bad for him. Apart from alcohol, but that doesn't really count, because you wouldn't get so many people drinking it if it was actually bad for you, right?
Right?
The other truth is that Patrick tried smoking weed once, when he was seventeen. He vomited then passed out, all in under five minutes. He was then, as abundant photographic evidence proves, subsequently teabagged by a number of his friends.
Patrick swore never to touch drugs again.