drew kingston x poppy monroe | 1.6k | past forced drug use; past drug addiction; past kidnapping; referenced familial death; angsty fluff; they have feelings | @loserwitchbitch
𝓲𝓽 𝓯𝓾𝓬𝓴𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓱𝓾𝓻𝓽𝓼, 𝓽𝓱𝓮𝓼𝓮 𝓭𝓻𝓾𝓰𝓼 𝓭𝓸𝓷'𝓽 𝔀𝓸𝓻𝓴, 𝓲 𝓭𝓸𝓷'𝓽 𝓴𝓷𝓸𝔀 𝔀𝓱𝔂
------𝔦 𝔠𝔞𝔫'𝔱 𝔤𝔢𝔱 𝔥𝔦𝔤𝔥
Poppy will always remember the first time Drew stepped foot in her apartment. She had meant to call her old dealer, just a letter off. Just a misclick. An accidental call that had probably saved her life But every day it felt like something more than that. Some cosmic push in his direction.
The nightmares were back, so real and vivid she was beginning to wake already in the fits of a panic attack. So many years spent running, looking over her shoulder, and even now, six feet underground, he still terrorizes her. She can never forget his fingers around her throat, the uncountable times cold metal pressed into her flesh and showered them both with her blood. Group isn't helping, nothing is helping. She knows what will, slamming her thumb down, preparing herself for the choice that she was making.
"Hello?" his voice tired, like she had imagined. The kick to her heart doesn't help, the apology is on her tongue when he speaks again, "Poppy?" there's urgency, something like caring.
"I'm not okay," the only words she can manage before a sob rips through her throat.
How he knew where to go or how fast he must've driven aren't the questions on her mind when he walks through the door. Just why? Why he cared so much? Why he even answered? But those eyes are everywhere and she just wants to feel safe.
Drew is safe.
He doesn't speak a word just gathers her in his arms and holds her tight, hands running against the damp back of her sweat-soaked tank top. It's the tightest she's been held with any sense of kindness since she was a child. She means something here, that's what gentle hands wiping away tears and soft hushes tell her. That's what he tells her.
"You have to talk about it," he says softly, chapped lips brushing against the shell of her ear, "You have to tell someone the truth," briefly catching on the hoop there before he pressed a soft kiss to her temple.
How does she even begin to explain what it feels like to be truly haunted? That's where she starts. She supposes there, the first time she'd felt unseen eyes attempting to peel the flesh from her bones. 19 years old, thinking she could do college, pretending that she'd felt nothing burying her mother, realizing how truly alone she was now. Tired and overworked, but not unaware. That had been his first mistake; Poppy refused to be prey. The running hadn't been the hard part, it was knowing that there was someone there. Just behind her, always out of sight.
"It was his smell first," she spoke, curled in the window frame, her first cigarette in two years hanging between her fingers, "This cheap imitation of my grandpa's cologne. Like he could trick me," crinkling her nose at the memory, "Something about it always smelt rancid, even in the beginning, even before..."
Silence for falls, for near an hour. Even when the filter was a smoldering ember sizzling on the damp concrete below. That's where her train to never-ending Hell boards , the pain, her addiction, everything starts that night. Even the nightmares won't take her back there and here she was, knowing that's the only place she can really begin.
"There is nothing you could say that would change how I feel about you," offering his hand, this isn't the moment to talk about what he means but how he helps her to the couch and pulls her close makes her truly hope they'll get to.
One day.
The drugs, as terrifying and surprising as they are, are truly wonderful. He seemed to mean the words he'd always repeat to her, I don't want to hurt you. For a moment, all the pain was gone in a wonderful rush, she expects a crash, the hard fall she's always heard about. But that won't do. He can't bend her that way. At first, she truly fears the worst, what else could he want? Drugging her and stealing her away into the night could only lead on place, at least she had thought. But this is different, cutting into her mind and forcing memories she doesn't want ever again. Glassy dead eyes, forceful hands in the back of a Camaro, blood. There aren't enough drugs to keep the memories at bay, not if he wants her alive.
Her back to his chest as he drug his fingers deliberately across her skin, keeps her here and now. But steely grays seem to peek from every shadow all the same. Just as they had then, when he played grainy footage from her first dance recital. When he said he loved her and disgust twisted in her gut because she believed him. In his own twisted way, he did. It had been a decade since she'd heard those words. It had made her sob, heart aching when he spoke them, till her throat stung with the bile that she'd begun to wretch. More drugs.
"You didn't mean to call me," it isn't a question, her breath catches, expecting him to push her away, reminding her there was always someway she could ruin even the smallest good, "More drugs can't be the answer. More is never the answer, no matter the sin."
"What about you?" she's quick to counter, feeling a rush at his grip tightening, "More of you feels like the answer," drowning in her vulnerability, unable to focus on anything but the comfort he blanketed her world in.
His breath catches, she can feel him tense and relax, "What happened next?" his arm slipping around her waist and hoisting her against him, face pressed in the crook of her neck.
Coping had built her tolerance, the cuffs had been loose, maybe it truly was ignorance. Or some part if him wanted to sabotage the demented man he's become. One last subconscious jab at something close to real love. But it ends in pain. Coughing blood on an abandoned highway, holding her guts in with dirt-caked hands and hoping against all hope this was the end.
The morphine is beautiful but it only can only hold the inevitable at bay for so long. A year and a half of drugs, seven months of sobriety, a falter of a few months and then three years on track. Going to her meetings, working her programs, her therapies, like a good girl. Doing what she was supposed to do, keeping herself alive, safe. That's what it's all for, right? Normality.
But still it happens all over again. Except he's angrier. There's pain. She's chewed up his love and spat it back in his face. There is only dark. A thin mattress on a cold floor and the drugs. She hates them, she loves them. But Poppy will hate him always, she reminds him when she can, when the sobriety peaks through the cracks. He's smarter now. Bigger doses, more often, a tighter chain that is meant to make her wince. But he can't plan for everything. And the sweet release of this prison one way or another was not a need to be trifled with. Goaded on by higher highs and lower lows, so easily tangled with the knowledge that an end was an end no matter how bloody.
She remembers the blood and the pain, but mostly she remembers laughing. A maniacal sound as she plunged. The knife into him over and over again. The joy turned to sobs when the police pulled her off him, when reality set in. He was gone but everything left in his wake would remain. The addiction, the fight, the scars. Some part of him would live on in her. And that was the most terrifying part, wasn't it? That no matter how hard she tried, nothing would truly wash him away. How-
"No!" His grip tightens on her bicep like never before, keeping her from turning away from him, "That's not true," no anger in his voice, just dripping with sadness. Taking a deep breath, Poppy reminded herself not to confuse it with pity, "It's not forever. Not for you," his voice shakes and she's starting to wonder if she isn't the most vulnerable person in the room. If even answering her call had been some ripping open of his chest to show her his insides, "Never for you."
How he can know, she has no idea, just that she believes him. It's not a power he holds over her, this isn't unwilling, she's happy to bend beneath his will. And she's only ever been rewarded with kindness, his wishes were her happiness, for some light.
"It's you," she hums, holding his cheek in her hand, "You're the light."
She'd been so little, unable to sleep. Nightmares or monsters, she's not sure. Just that she'd curled up beside her grandfather, nagging him awake until his groggy voice agreed to tell her a story. The only one he knew by heart. Even now she knows it's about her grandmother. A princess locked away in a tower by a cruel king, a flimsy explanation of an abusive father that made her fear slamming doors till the day she passed. And he had saved her. His beautiful light, who wouldn't fade no matter how hard the darkness tried to take her. That was the part she could never understand, it felt like the only part of the story that may truly be a fairytale.
Until here.
Until now.
You'll find your light, flower, he had said, sometimes she still hears it in her dreams. But now, staring at Drew, it's the loudest it's ever been. An echo that seems to know more from beyond the grave than she ever could living the moment here and now.
He nods slowly, turning his head ever so slightly to kiss her palm before loosening his own grip till his fingers drug loosely down her skin to tug at her elbow, "It's good you called me."
Poppy nodded. What was left to say?
10 notes
·
View notes
3, 4, 14, 15, 16 :D
3. When is your birthday?
December 4!
4. What is your zodiac sign?
Sag Sun, Libra Moon, Gemini Rising (My Libra moon is so dominant lol)
14. Are you psychic in any way?
I used to think I wasn’t at all and was just super obsessed with witches and general spooky things, but my whole life I’ve had dreams of things that then end up happening to me whether it’s an actual event or just conversations I end up having, where when it’s actually going on I already know everything that’s about to happen even if whatever is being said to me is totally new information so I think maybe a liiiitle bit I might be!
15. Favourite song?
This is the hardest one omg. I would say at the moment Passenger Seat by Death Cab For Cutie is the song I turn to a lot right now, but I’m not sure what my absolute favourite is!
16. Favourite movie?
My favourite live-action movie is The Breakfast Club and my favourite animated movie is The Nightmare Before Christmas!
Horror wise my FAVES are The Lost Boys, Halloween, Evil Dead, and Midsommar!
Thank you for asking!! :’)
3 notes
·
View notes