[center][I]Collab between Gonzo and Mach2[/I][/center] Beep Beep Beep... Beep Be- James opened his eyes and smiled as his hand slid from the old alarm clock. He turned over, half expecting to see the half-naked body of a female who he had picked up the night before, but when his arm wrapped around nothing, his smile faded. There was a confused look on the half-awake male until the memories from the night before came flooding into his head. His hand immediately went for his gut, and he pressed down. No pain. That was good. James stood slowly and grabbed a towel, disrobing on the way there. He took his shower slowly, listening to another favorite classical piece. Once he was out of the shower and dried, he wrapped the towel around his waist and slowly walked out of the room. Once inside the front room, he looked up at the ceiling. "Music, on. Continue playing Bach Cello Suite No. 1." The music started playing softly, and he passed by the restroom on his way to the kitchen. The sounds of Vander heaving made him stop in his tracks, then backtrack a few steps. "Vander? Are you okay?" ---- She opened the door a moment after James spoke, but first took the second to make herself look at least a tiny bit presentable. She pushed her hair over to the right side of her face, allowing some of it to conceal the fully-developed bruise on her cheek. Her hands still refused to move too far from a relaxed fist, but she managed to get the door open after a second of fumbling. "I'm sorry, you shouldn't've had to hear that," she apologized sincerely, realizing he'd undoubtedly heard her ejecting the contents of her stomach. She looked at him for a second, and proceeded to feel suitably embarrassed. James was in a towel, freshly showered, already awake. She was in the same clothes as yesterday, her hair a mess, puking into the toilet of his apartment. "I was about to leave," she added quickly, absentmindedly continuing to try to massage some sensation back into her numb hands. "I didn't actually mean to stay this long." ---- A small smile flashed across the young man's face as he looked down at the clearly embarrassed Vander. It wasn't until he looked down at his own attire did he fully understand why. His face grew red with embarrassment of his own, and his shifted his feet, a bit uncomfortably. He cleared his throat once or twice before shifting on his feet once more. His eyes opened up at the mention of her leaving, and he immediately shook his head. "No, no. You don't have to leave right now. Please, stay. Get washed up. I can wash your clothes for you as well, and I can get you some fresh, clean clothes. And then when Mason wakes up, we can all go to breakfast or something. I mean, it's the least I can do for being such a dick last night." As he spoke, he tried not to break eye contact, giving Vander a pleading look that he used to give his parents when he was earlier; one that almost always worked. ---- As James turned red, now it was Vander's turn to bear the amused smile. But the expression vanished as he made the offer to allow her to stay longer. It was replaced with a mix of surprise and anxiousness. She couldn't stay. She had to get back to D-16, back to her apartment, where the four precious syringes were stowed carefully in her closet underneath a pair of jeans. She could picture them in her mind, and she needed to get them. Vander bit her lip, looking entirely undecided. You'd gone a full day yesterday...and you didn't have anyone offering you breakfast then. But yesterday she had also been just a little bit healthier, just a little bit stronger. "No, I really need to get back to..." she started to argue, but then she looked at James. The expression on his face seemed to be pleading for her to stay. It was a complete reversal from how he had behaved last night, but it was just the persuasion she needed. She could do this. If she really, truly, pushed herself, she could do it. "Okay...All right." The agreement was reluctant, but it was there. "I'll stay. And I'll try breakfast, too. Thanks...that really means a lot. Really." ---- James smiled and clapped his hands together once. "That's great. I will... go get dressed. In the mean time, you can order clothes from any shop. It's on me. Just go grab that tablet on the table, and he clothes will be here faster than you can sing a line from your favorite song." The man turned on his heels and slowly walked back into his room. Not even a minute later, Mason stepped out of his, what his brother liked to call, "shit hole of a room". The man was in nothing but his underwear and an open robe. He walked over to the kitchen, passing by the bathroom, and picked up an apple from the fruit basket. He turned and walked over to the bathroom door, but not before grabbing his bong off the coffee table, and smiled, raising an eyebrow. "Hey. You're still here," he mumbled, taking a hit, then taking a bite of the apple directly after blowing the smoke in Vander's face. He motioned his head to the bruise on her face. "It's getting kind of noticeable. Might want to cover that up, you know?" ---- "Yeah. James offered to let me stay a while longer..." The scent of the smoke nearly sent her stomach reeling again. But without Lucid, the odour was subdued to a minimum. Vander raised a hand, the fingers curled in a loose fist but slowly beginning to regain some sensation, and gently brushed it against the bruise. Even the slight contact was easily felt. Deon had struck her hard, but on any other girl, the bruise wouldn't have been quite as noticeable. "I bruise easy, lately," she answered indifferently. It was an effect of a long-term addiction to Lucid. "Blood vessels weakening and all that. It doesn't actually look much worse than if I'd just walked into something." She made her way over to the indicated tablet, a much more sophisticated version of the glitchy knock-offs they used in Beta. She knew how to use it, and accessed the network of online shops, swiping her half-dead fingers over the screen. The first ones that popped up were hundreds of credits outside of her usual price range, and it was impossible to keep her eyebrows from going up in surprise. She navigated her way to a shop midway between her own budget and what had been initially offered. With a few more clumsy swipes across the tablet, Vander selected a simple pair of jeans and, taking a step outside of her comfort zone, a shirt that was not black or white. The burgundy shirt buttoned up in the front, and the sleeves looked long enough to fit her lanky arms. She made the purchase. ---- Mason looked up at the ceiling, and frowned at the song. "Music off." He looked back down at Vander and shook his head. "I swear. Him and his classical music. I've heard that song at least a thousand times." The male raised an eyebrow at her statement, and nodded in understanding. "It's because your body is dying from the inside out." It was more of a statement to himself than a question. At this point, he didn't know if he should feel sorry for her, or worry that she seemed to stop caring about what the drug was doing to her. He watched as the female made her way over to the tablet, and followed close behind her. He raised an eyebrow, taking interest in her choice of style, and laughed a little when she moved to the less expensive clothes than what she could have bought. His eyes shifted to the back of her head, then back to the tablet, and smiled. "You know, if James said you can buy clothes, you can buy something a littlemore expensive than that. Just saying.. Oh, make sure you buy some make up as well.. You know, for your face and all." James stepped out of his room, dressed in a cool, blue button up, and a pair of cream colored slacks with matching shoes, and frowned at his younger brother. "Leave Vander alone. She can buy what she wants." He walked up to the two and smiled down at the tablet. "Nice choice in clothing. Suits you well, I think. Now, when the clothes arrive, just leave them on the couch, and you can use my shower to clean up. Then after that, we can go somewhere and eat, okay?" ---- "I know what my body's doing," Vander replied, unable to keep a distinct edge of bitterness out of her voice. She didn't need to be reminded. In fact, the less she thought about Lucid this morning, the better. Every mention of it only served to remind her that she was already hurting for another fix. "Just...stop talking about it," she muttered under her breath a moment before James walked back into the room. She quickly took Mason's suggestion, adding a concealer for her bruise to the list of purchases before setting the tablet down. Feeling had finally returned to her fingertips, though a faint pins-and-needles still remained. The nerves would likely start acting up in another hour or two...but until then, the dilemma had passed. "What I bought was expensive. It would have taken me weeks to save up for just the shirt," she told Mason jokingly. Weeks, of course, when she'd actually had a proper part-time job, and before she'd gotten into the drug business. Vander listened as James spoke, nodding when he was done. The thought of eating anything wasn't entirely appealing. No matter what it was, it would taste bland and irritate her stomach. But the thought of a shower was enticing beyond words. The water pressure in her own apartment was non-existant most of the time, and half-assed at best. "Thank you, again," she said earnestly.