Lickies

Chapter 1
The Tripsitter

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Chapter Description: Wherein those of us more philosophically inclined consider the ramifications of a reality we can’t know is real.

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Lachlan held the five tablets between thumb and finger, scrutinizing them. Two red, two yellow and one blue. Tiny things, roughly the size and shape of Skittles. But to him they were huge, huge for what they represented. His first psychoactive. The carpet of Nadia’s bedroom floor was hazy, out of focus. Here was all of his attention, the centre of his universe.

Ilikia retrocaine. The perfect starter, so she claimed.

“So,” Lachlan said, “what does it do?”

Nadia was watching with arms folded and one foot propped back on the window. The brittle glass overlooked a four-story drop from her apartment to concrete. “It does,” she said, “exactly what you asked for. I searched far and wide for this one, Lachie. You owe me twenty.”

“Huh?” Lachlan glanced up, and for once ignored the use of his old pet name. He’d gone by ‘Lachie’ in primary school, and it appeared at the top of every workbook and homework sheet. Now it sounded so childish it made his teeth hurt from grinding them.

“Well the saying goes ‘you owe me one’,” Nadia explained while she brushed her long black hair and leaned harder against the window. Beyond the glass the night was gloomy, and her ambient-dim room matched the theme, with posters along the walls making it out as a philosophy-oriented morgue. The one that caught Lachlan’s eye this time was the photo of a brain, stem and all, with text over various segments, detailing their roles in altered states of consciousness. “But it’s worth way more than that. Hence, you owe me twenty.”

“Right.” Lachlan had never cared less for his friend’s wit. His heart tapped fast against his chest and his gaze kept flicking to the wall-length mirror mounted against the closet, where a scratch on the glass obscured the beard he trimmed neat and proper every morning. He couldn’t believe the young man there, sensible mellow Lachlan Arthur, was actually trying this. But sure enough, there were those widened green eyes looking back, and his stony expression trying and failing to hide nervousness. He glanced at his rat-tailed blond hair, the wildest thing he’d ever done. Was he really going through with this? How much did he care about losing face if he backed out? This wasn’t high school after all; he was twenty-two and she, an experienced tripsitter, was three years his senior. If he walked away now, the worst he had to worry about was disappointing her, but if he downed these things...

“When you say they’re exactly what I asked for...” Lachlan prompted, stalling for more time to think because suddenly, the five months leading to the decision didn’t seem enough.

Nadia rolled her eyes. “It creates the perfect illusion that you’re tripping back in time, reliving deeper memories for every dose, vivid and full of psychedelic insight, guaranteed to blow your fucking mind, anytime, to paraphrase the late Freddie Mercury. You’ll also get euphoria, blissful lightness, ego obliteration, blah blah. Now are we gonna do this already?”

Lachlan peered down at the pills as though for guidance. The colour dye was rubbing red yellow and blue over his sweaty fingers. That did sound like precisely what he’d been looking for, but... “What if something goes wrong? I mean... as in, the risks...”

“Lachie. Drugs are dangerous. But I already asked, do you get migraines? Are you poppin’ pills? Heart condition, seizures, strokes? No? Then you’re fine. I’ve been sitting since Year 10 and I know what I’m doing, so, leave the rest to me, okay? So come on. I’m getting bored.”

There was nothing else to it, just his mouth and the pills. Ilikia retrocaine, street name ‘lickies’. How come he’d never heard of it before? But Nadia was right, she knew what she was doing, and he trusted her. She’d always been as rogue as he was tamed, but that was just how things were on their sides of the fence, until now. They’d been friends since he started uni and she’d made a point of not offering to hook him up with acid like everyone else because she was sure it would fuck him up. Somehow her every assertion was confident, definitive, and always right, where he’d always been cautious, timid even.

But he didn’t want timid, not really, and that was the point. He still read comics and watched sci-fi and fantasy he was meant to have outgrown years ago for the thrill of being someone more exciting than himself. Time to stop living vicariously. Reading an action scene had nothing on racing down a freeway at three times the speed limit. So why watch others step beyond the boundaries when he could go there himself?

And more than that, there was a very particular something he was searching for, and it wasn’t something he was likely to tell Nadia, or anyone...

“What do I do?” he asked, knowing, instructions had to be the final point of stalling.

“You put ‘em in your mouth, and suck ‘em.”

“Suck them?”

“Yeah. Like a lolly. They dissolve on your tongue. Effects are instant.”

Lachlan took a breath. With a jerky swing of his hand, he dropped the pills in his mouth, and sucked.

At once: flavour so intense he nearly cried out in shock – lemon, blueberry and apple, overpowering as chilli peppers, only sweet instead of hot. He had to struggle not to spit them out. From the corner of his eye, he saw Nadia smirk devilishly.

Then the flavours’ intensity subsided into something different but just as powerful, a recognition, he knew these tastes from long ago and along with that came the strangest, almost nostalgic, feeling of freshness. It was still lemon, blueberry and apple, but he might as well have been tasting them for the first time, an experience simultaneously alien and familiar. Lachlan rolled them around on his tongue, beset with something akin to homesickness, a longing like no other.

Nadia leant forward to see his face. “You holding up?”

Lachlan nodded, mutely. His stare was fixed on the mirror but he’d long ceased noticing his reflection.

“Come sit down.” Nadia took his hand and shoulder and guided him to her bed. He let her, but he was more interested in the emotions washing through him... then he felt the covers under him, and things changed again. The softness, the way it ran from his thighs and hands to his head, he could feel the nerve signals all along his body, understood the structure of sensation and the way one thing affected the next, how he enjoyed the touch and the way it made him feel, how it soothed his heartrate and breathing slightly, how the electrical signals flowed up to his brain and out again, the rush, the complexity, it made everything before it dull by comparison.

Now that the tablets were dissolved, the afterglow travelled through tastebuds, radiating over his whole body. That homesickness was warping into something different, a question: are you ready to change? And the answer, resounding in his subconscious, was yes.

“Talk to me,” Nadia said.

“I can... feel my whole body shifting...” Lachlan rolled his forearm over to see it from different angles. Was the slight hair that had grown there over the last year disappearing? That’s what it felt like. A euphoric ecstasy was sweeping through it that made him aware of everything under the skin, the bones, the muscles, they were transforming!

“Mirror. Get me a mirror!”

When Nadia was too slow reaching for the one on her bedside table, Lachlan thrust himself off the bed to see his reflection against the closet. There he was, enraptured face looking even smoother, fresher, and the nostalgic familiarity of the drugs permeated his body, it was something he knew, beyond question, he was –

“Nadia. I’m getting younger!”

“Okay. Sweet as.”

“It’s not like I thought, it’s... I thought I was gonna go into a memory but I’m actually, physically getting younger...” He was clenching his hands, wanting to get across just how incredible this all was, rejuvenating, and being connected with himself. But, “What if it doesn’t stop? Or what if I can’t get back to normal, I –”

“Lachie. It’s all in your head. Remember you told me to tell you that? You’re not actually getting younger, it just looks like it.”

“Oh – yeah.” But peering closer into the mirror, it was hard to deny what he could so clearly see. A thinner, gawkier Lachlan Arthur, not so broad at the shoulders, less muscle definition... he rolled up his shirt, only a trace of body hair running up to his belly button, and his face, still recognisable of course but he appeared to be at the end of high school, still adult yet with a hint of boyishness that was supposed to have given way to a more mature expression. This was a hallucination? He hadn’t expected it to be so realistic. “This is really weird.”

“Yup. Tends to be.” Nadia was upright on the covers, perky and casual as she watched him. “Just keep breathing slow and remember it’s not real, it’s all for fun and nothing bad’s gonna happen to you.”

“Breathe slow...” Lachlan started to, but halfway through the first intake, he spun around. He felt uncharacteristically hyper; the connectedness was dissipating too but that was fine, it was becoming something different and once again familiar, a surge of energy, adrenaline, as he re-entered his teenage years and started subtly losing height. “You really can’t see me changing? I’m getting smaller and everything.”

Nadia shook her head. “You look like the same old Lachie to me. But that’s okay, just enjoy whatever comes up, that’s the idea.”

Turning back to the mirror, he saw himself at maybe sixteen years old, lean face and a few inches shorter, skinny and with wisps of a beard over pockmarked chin. “It’s so... I’m so lucid.” And indeed, this was nothing like the dreamlike delirium he’d expected from psychedelics, everything was crystal clarity, his thinking didn’t seem altered at all even though surely it was, because there he stood as a teenager and that was impossible, so he must be imagining it. But what came back just as strong as the appearance was the sense of being sixteen, or fifteen, the adolescent mindset like a backdrop in his brain, school timetables and striped ties and junior uniform looking to senior, passenger looking to start driving soon, exam pressure from parents... Mental regression? Lachlan peered at the ceiling as he scanned his brain, but no, he could rattle off advanced mathematical formulas and theorems learnt in uni, yet to part of him, tertiary education had become a hypothetical prospect again, he was more at home in high school. Well. As ‘at home’ as a schoolkid can be.

When his eyes flicked back to the mirror, the scratch on the glass formerly at chin height now rested at his golden hair, but the pleasant awareness of his body warping was fading away. Sure enough, as Lachlan stared at his own young face now partway between boy and man, without sign of facial hair and even lightly freckled near his smaller nose, the process ceased and left him, judging by the last time he’d seen those freckles, around ninth grade.

His shirt draped his shoulders and he was almost a foot shorter. He grabbed his jeans before they could slide down over awkward legs lined with that experimental tone of hair fourteen-year-olds get. But were the loose jeans an illusion too? Well if they were, he didn’t want the illusion of showing off his manhood, now reduced something more like boyhood, to Nadia. Lachlan braced them, pulled the belt buckle around to the last hole, and it still hung loose.

Fourteen. He was eight years younger!

“This is fucking amazing!” he said, noticing his voice was higher and huskier than it used to be, but still passable for an adult’s.

“It must’ve had some impact on you. You never swear,” Nadia commented. “Might want to watch your mouth, or I’ll have to wash it out with soap.”

Lachlan bristled.. “I’m fourteen, not four.” And fourteen felt young enough, thanks. Even if some secret part of him wouldn’t have minded taking it further...

“Oh, really? Right, I couldn’t tell, you still look twenty-two to me.”

But his focus diverted from the quip as he realised, the background awareness of what was happening in his mind and body was ebbing, leaving him stranded in adolescent-land without clue to his turbulent emotions. That was sure to make things hard if he didn’t watch himself, and remember this was all a trip.

A flash of light snapped him out of his reverie and Lachlan turned to see Nadia standing up with a camera poised. “What are you doing?”

“Just taking a photo for Lachie on his first trip,” Nadia said. “It’s a moment to remember, kiddo. One for the family album.”

Lachlan scowled. “You know I don’t like you calling me Lachie.”

“Aw, sorry. Still too grown up?”

“Yeah, actually.” Lachlan went back to his reflection. Something wasn’t right about this. Now the high had worn off, he didn’t feel inebriated at all. Everything was normal, except for this consistent image of a teenager before him, and the background impulses of a teenage boy wanting impact, some drive to sate his need for action. An uncannily familiar sensation, but... shouldn’t his pupils be dilated or something? It was weird, sure, but the weirdest part was how not-weird it seemed.

“So what do you wanna do?” Nadia asked.

“I... dunno...” Even as he spoke, Lachlan noticed his tone was laced with gauche adolescence.

“Oh, come on. You’re fourteen again. You must wanna do something with that new young body.” And she socked him playfully on the arm.

Lachlan cringed away, not used to how skinny his arm felt against the blow. His fringe brushed over his eyebrow and a glimpse in the mirror showed him looking the part of a withdrawn moody teenager.

Nadia frowned. “What’s wrong? Is it going bad?”

“No, it’s just...” He flopped down on her bed, the mattress was springy under his lighter weight. “It’s way too normal...” But he muttered it, and there was a voice telling him she wouldn’t understand anyway. Truth was he did want to do something, there was a mounting urge like he wanted excitement, danger even. “Let’s...” he started.

“Let’s?”

The idea of asking her out seemed appropriately dangerous. But he dismissed the surge of inexperienced lust as hopeless, and not for the first time. “I don’t know...”

“You don’t?” Nadia sounded amused.

“Let’s go driving!” He said it was a grin halfway between daring and cheesy, and flashed Nadia a look he hoped was wild.

“Oho no,” she said. “Not on lickies, my friend. That’s why I’m here, to stop you doing stupid shit like that.”

“But I’m thinking clearly and everything!” Lachlan crossed his arms. He wanted to see what it would be like, driving underage, would he still have the muscle memory for it? “We could just cruise around the neighbourhood?”

“No chance.”

Lachlan sighed, almost pouting. Then a new idea occurred to him with a tingle of rebellion. “We could get a drink?”

Nadia waved her finger. “No mixing drugs. Not for a first-timer.”

Lachlan groaned. It sounded more petulant than he intended, but that, like his rejuvenated body, must have been his imagination. But what the hell, it was like having all the limits of a teenager imposed on him again, this wasn’t what he wanted. A thought crossed his mind that he should grab a beer and take the keys anyway just to spite her, but that wasn’t right, he was more mature than that. But, something.

Of course, something was waiting right there on the bedside table, next to the alarm clock with the swirling psychedelic screen. Lachlan recalled the flavours, stronger than anything he’d ever tasted before, and the memories they brought back hovering at the edge of consciousness. And what came afterwards, the connection with himself, hadn’t that been amazing, and it had passed way too fast. He wanted that back again.

Nadia followed his gaze to the bag of lolly-esque pills in plastic wraps. “You want a booster?”

“Yeah. Maybe.” Drugs, there was the hit he needed, something truly radical, and this time he was nervous like before, but the nerves converted to adrenaline, and the adrenaline became intoxicating, a consensus in his mind chanting go for it! The fear, the anticipation, the excitement of sitting on a perch right before the roller coaster’s second big drop. He knew what it was like the first time, now his heart pounded again, made it seem like the perfect idea.

Nadia handed him two pills. “Looks like IRC’s your kind of medicine, huh?”

He looked up, halfway through unwrapping the first pill. “IRC?”

“Ilikia retrocaine. We only want a small boost though, think you can live with just two this time?”

“Fine.” Lachlan shrugged. “Nadia,” he added. “The –caine suffix means it’s an anaesthetic, doesn’t it?” That was basic, first-year chemistry stuff.

“Yeah. So?”

“So, this is more like a super stimulant.” As his voice cracked on super, Lachlan raised a hand to his mouth in surprise – he’d only tried to accentuate the word.

Nadia didn’t seem to have noticed, though. “I guess. What’s your point?”

He didn’t really have a point. Lachlan peered at the pills in his less worn, somewhat smaller palm. Once again there was doubt creeping in. It might take him into a closed-eye hallucination but, what if it made him look like a little kid? But that was unlikely, right? Maybe these pills were minimum strength, or maybe he had a natural resistance, and taking more would make it work like it was meant to. He swayed where he sat... But what did it matter anyway, it was all for fun, and bottom line was he wanted that rush again, and nothing did it quite like these things.

Orange and green this time. He rolled them onto his tongue.

It came again, immediate, not as strong as last time but still tremendous, absorbing, tangy orange and bittersweet lime flooding his senses. Lachlan’s eyes opened wide as he sucked, and somewhere in his mind, behind the overdrive, came a thought that the look on his face would make a great ad for Skittles. This was like chewing a packet of them in a single mouthful.

“Urkh,” said Nadia from the comparatively boring background of her room. “You just reminded me, my major thesis is due in two weeks.” And she went on about her Bachelor of Advanced Science as though Lachlan wasn’t experiencing the most incredible sensation of his life right next to her. He wasn’t listening. She was talking about her flatmates Bec and Jodie and how they’d want to see him. Dimly he wondered why. Their fellow Advanced Science students had never seemed hugely interested in him before.

Now the nostalgia kicked in, and as Lachlan floated through half-formed memories of lime and orange, he realised this was what he’d been reaching for. Something in the youthful feeling made him whole. A kind of comfort, and safety, so complete that a mere flavour brought it back. Yet so tantalising, only hinted at, and even as he immersed himself in that deepest security, he knew he needed more. This alone could never satisfy.

The lickies fizzled out on his tongue and there was that knowledge again, of how the flavours sent signals through his tongue up to different parts of his brain. Wonderful, to be connected, to know what was going on inside him. Something rushed down his arms, down his legs, to the tips of his fingers and toes. That unspoken question again: do you want to take it closer? And once more there was no doubt when he answered yes. Yes he did.

A lightness overcame him as his body began to change.

“Huh?” Lachlan looked down over his too-big shirt, and jolted. “No! I’m getting younger again!”

Nadia nodded. “It’s an interesting reaction.”

“No! I’m not supposed to –”

He sprang up off the bed. Already his jeans were too loose again and they dropped down around his thighs. He quickly pulled them up and held them, but as he did he could feel his hand, alike the rest of his body, was shrinking. The room enlarged around him as he descended back through pubescent growth spurts, ever aware of how his meagre muscles diminished further, and how his bone structure shifted.

“Relax,” Nadia said. “It’s all happening in your head.”

“Y-you’re sure?” Lachlan’s voice hadn’t yet risen to a childish tenor but it was close, and it could no longer be mistaken for an adult’s.

“All I see is a grown man clutching his pants and looking stupid.” She smiled. “Which is all part and parcel with drugs. Don’t worry.”

“It’s so real...”

Lachlan looked in the mirror – and took a sharp intake. The scratch now rested above his head like a height marker he had yet to reach, and his face, was that him? The boy in the mirror looked like he’d just started high school! He raised his free hand to his rosy cheek, running it over the smooth skin, the freckles, his mouth was agape revealing awkwardly large front teeth, his eyes looked so young. He was every bit a child, and the transformation wasn’t finished.

His pants had become a bag he held up to cover himself, not that it was necessary anymore because his shirt now draped over his waist. The jeans pooled around his socks. Pubic hair disappeared. The room kept growing, when was it going to stop? Lachlan steadied himself against the bedside table, now at hip height, and let out a moan. Caught up in everything else happening to him, he registered as if from far away how high his voice sounded, and how childish. He held his forehead, touched his softened hair, knew by retrocaine intuition that its gradient was changing to a lighter, more childish hue.

When he looked up, everything was disorienting. How could he be standing upright and yet be so close to the ground? The dimensions were different... it was baffling to think there was ever a time when this height, and this appearance, had been normal. A hesitant glance to the mirror replayed his primary school visage. The worried kid reflected there looked eleven going on ten.

“How we doing, champ?” Nadia asked. When he turned to her he found himself looking up, where before she’d been slightly shorter than him. Now he came up to her neck. He must have been less than five feet tall! “Holding up?” she added when he just gazed at her open-mouthed.

“Yeah...” He sounded so light and squeaky! How could it be possible a drug was doing this? All an illusion, according to Nadia.. But could his mind really alter his perception so fast and convincingly that the two of them would appear to be at different angles to each other than they really were? It didn’t seem possible. And yet the alternative was to believe he’d actually gotten younger.

He decided he didn’t like this whole drug thing after all.

“Is it stopping now?” Nadia asked.

Lachlan nodded. It was, he could tell. His reflection showed him at about ten years old, scrawny and little. The shirt was tentlike and the hand holding up his jeans was rounded at the knuckles, untarnished child’s fingers, way too believable.

“I... I, need, clothes.” Lachlan sounded out each word, trying to bypass his new juvenile tone. But voice and all other features were in no sight of puberty. There was no avoiding it.

Nadia laughed. “The clothes you have fit just fine. Here, take your hand away.” And before he could react, she yanked it off the belt, and his jeans dropped straight to his ankles.

Lachlan yelped, and stooped to cover his privates, which weren’t visible under the shirt anyway. “Nadia!”

“Oh, don’t be a baby. I can’t see anything, remember?”

“I know, but...” He looked around the room, as though hoping to find clothes that would fit.

“Lachlan. Seriously, most people have it figured out by now. It’s all a trip, you could probably just imagine you’re wearing pants if you really try.” She smiled. “Heh, like make-believe.”

Lachlan stepped carefully out of his jeans and bent and picked them up. Wrapping them around his waist as a makeshift loincloth, he went to the door, knob now almost at neck height, and opened it.

“The neuronaut journeys on,” Nadia mused. “Oy – where are you going?”

For Lachlan had ducked into the hallway and was heading for the guest room. Maybe she’d had a nephew or something stay who left behind clothes that would fit a ten-year-old. Wait, no. He wasn’t really ten, the problem was finding clothes he could convince himself this younger body could wear... well whatever, as long as he wasn’t going around thinking his skinny legs and whatever else were showing. He peeked open the guest room door...

“Hey!” Nadia said, catching up. “No, you can’t go in there!”

The door opened to reveal that the plain guest room he was used to had transformed as well.

Into a dorm clearly suited for a young boy.

He stood, one hand still on the doorknob, taking it in. “What’s going on?”

“What do you mean?” Nadia asked, right behind him.

“Don’t play dumb, Nadia. It wasn’t like this before. Why didn’t you want me to see it?”

“Who said I didn’t want you to see it?”

“You did, just then. You said I couldn’t.”

Nadia shook her head. “I meant you’re not supposed to go anywhere you might hurt yourself. I’m your tripsitter, so it’s my job to keep you from exploring too much. Now, why don’t you tell me what you can see that’s got you glaring at me like that?”

Lachlan clenched his hands. “You know what I can see, don’t act like it isn’t real!” He stamped his foot to stress the point.

“No, I don’t,” Nadia said, as cool as he wasn’t. “Why don’t you humour me.”

Lachlan sighed. This wasn’t right, she had to be playing him. But he turned to look in anyway. “It’s a little kid’s room. Blue walls... Buzz Lightyear clock... toys on the ground...” There were action figures scattered about and, at his feet, a remote-control monster truck with flames patterned on the side. “Kid-size bed with Star Trek covers –”

“Did you like Star Trek when you were a kid?”

“Yes...” Point of fact, it had been a lifelong fantasy to be part of the Enterprise crew. Though he didn’t see how that was relevant.

“Well,” Nadia said, kneeling down to his level, “I didn’t know that. So I couldn’t have engineered it just for you, could I?”

“Yes you could!” Lachlan’s voice spiked as he shouted. “You’re even kneeling to talk to me right now!”

“Lachie,” Nadia said, laying a hand on his shoulder. “No I’m not. It’s the lickies, they’re playing with your mind.”

“Don’t call me Lachie!” He thrust her hand off, feeling his cheeks flush.

“Lachlan. Listen to me, please. Are you listening?” She stayed so controlled and unmoved by his outbursts, she had a sternness that made him meek, gave the sense like he was being immature. Not enough to make him back down, because he was still sure she was tricking him somehow, but he took a few deep breaths anyway and nodded. “Okay,” she said. “What were you hoping to find when you went in there?”

Again thrown by the question, he paused, and said, “Clothes...”

“Clothes that would fit,” Nadia finished. “And because you think you’re only as big as a little boy, where might you find clothes that fit?”

“A... little kid’s room...”

“That’s how some drugs work,” she said, explaining it to a child. “It’s like a dream: you think you’ll find something, so you find it. It’s called suggestion. Understand?”

“I... yeah...” His gaze dropped to the carpet where Nadia was kneeling.

It dawned on him that he’d made a mistake. How dumb could he be, yelling at her like that, when he knew drugs mixed people up and made them believe the trip was real. If he’d only thought about it, it wasn’t like she could actually turn him into a ten-year-old using pills.

“That’s why the bed has Star Trek covers, because that’s what you expected to find. But you never told me you liked Star Trek, did you? And I bet if we take a look inside, we’ll find clothes you can wear.”

“I... don’t think I wanna try drugs anymore.”

She nodded. “That’s okay. They’re not for everyone. But we still have to brush this trip off, so do you reckon you’d feel better if we got you into something your size? Then maybe you can go to sleep and let it all be over.”

“Okay.” It sounded weird, though. Sleeping in a bed meant for a ten-year-old, as a ten-year-old? But as he allowed Nadia to shepherd him into the room, Lachlan reminded himself, it was all an illusion anyway. He’d wake up in the morning and the guest room would be just as he remembered it and he would be too.

Nadia sat on the bed to reach behind the pillow. She pulled out of a pair of briefs and blue fleece pyjamas. “Spare clothes,” she said. “Do these work for you?”

He took them, and held them against his chest and legs. Perfect match. “What do they look like to you?” he asked.

Nadia shrugged. “Just normal pyjamas.”

Lachlan had read a lot of trip recounts, and he’d never heard of one so stable and lifelike. But then, he’d never heard of ilikia retrocaine either. Whatever. He just wanted this finished now.

“I won’t look,” Nadia said, and turned away as Lachlan changed.

Lachlan buttoned up the top, and scowled when he saw white racecars patterning it. The freshly-washed PJs felt nice against his skin, though. The soft fabric brought back memories. He stifled a yawn, and said, “You can look now.”

Nadia turned, and smiled. “Someone looks sleepy.”

“A little. It’s just been a weird day.”

She tapped her knees. “C’mere.”

And suddenly there were arms wrapping around his midsection. Lachlan yelped as she hoisted him into her lap. He gripped her forearms for support and looked down to see his feet dangling between her legs, not touching the carpet. A hand brushed through his hair and eased his head against her shoulder.

“Nadia?”

“I know,” she said. “It’s been a weird day and you must be exhausted. But now you’re all ready for bed and there’s nothing to worry about anymore.”

“Wha...” Was this part of the trip? Maybe this whole crazy adventure had taken place in his head, how else could this be happening? He yawned, but tried to keep his eyes open to focus on what was going on.

“One of the effects of IRC,” Nadia went on, stroking his hair... and it actually felt really good... “is when it wears off, you get very tired, very quickly. And you had seven pills, so you’ll be completely drained. Not only that,” she checked the Toy Story alarm clock by the bed, “it’s 11:30. Way past your bed time.”

Lachlan slumped against her. She was right. His muscles had gone limp and it was the best feeling, letting her cradle him like this. Whether it made sense or not, it was like... it was like this brought him closer to what he’d been longing for when he took the pills, even before that really, the surrender, the...

“Go to sleep, Lachie,” Nadia said. “You’ll feel much better in the morning.” She squeezed him in a hug, and he closed his eyes, breathing out a long sigh.

When Nadia seemed satisfied that the boy in her arms had relaxed enough, she lifted him gently and laid him on the sheets. She tucked him in, and brushed back a lock of golden hair and patted him on the shoulder.

It was bliss, wavering on sleep, feeling small and protected under the blankets. Half-coherent thoughts drifted through his mind, one about the drug and wanting to try it again, but he didn’t need to really, this warmth alone was the hit he craved so much... The last thing he felt before he fell asleep was Nadia leaning over him and kissing him on the forehead.

And a short while later, unregistered as he was already dreaming, a camera flashed somewhere above him.

 

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