This is the second of a double-post, and the one that contains the bad stuff. Please note that I know what being drunk feels like, but have never partaken in Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD or Acid) which are used in this chapter, and as such I have no practical experience of a trip on this substance. I have taken copious artistic license, therefore. Enjoy.

Chapter Thirteen

For a few days, both Annie and Kaylee were absorbed into the writhing, busy mass of black hats that was Team Rocket, each in their own world. If destiny had been kind, if the world had worked as it should, they would have never seen each other again, following Kaylee's usual pattern of loving and leaving. But alas, life is cruel, and perhaps God had finally decided to end the cycle when he had the two girls meet again in the oddest of places: the launderette two streets down from Annie's apartment. It was the first dark night of winter, and frost had settled on the rooves of houses and run amok with the water pipes in Kaylee's older condo, so her washing machine wasn't working. Annie, on the other hand, had no dryer and needed her uniform washed by tomorrow.

A strange awkwardness stretched between them, on that had never been present before. Annie offered a smile. "Hey."

Taken slightly off-balance by their meeting, Kaylee frowned and bit her lip. She wanted Annie to hate her and leave her alone. To let her take the easy road. She could go out, get irresponsibly drunk and throw a dart at another place on the map. She quite fancied a Vermillion girl next, yes- that would be good. But just then, looking at the sincerity, the honest belief that Annie held in her, those warm, childish eyes… Kaylee's breath caught in her throat. That was it. That spark, that sliver of goodness, the liquid innocence that clung in silvery beads around someone's body. With a creak, her jaw trembled and her reply stuck like a burr.

"Are you okay, Kaylee?"

Her quivering hands clenched at her sides, and then one rose, quietly, without premise, to gently touch its forefinger on Annie's flushed winter cheeks, leaving an invisible line of curious agony. They shivered as one, the younger pulling away, the older pushing forwards. So strange. How had she not taken it, snatched it all up, before? Why did it overflow now, brimming at every pore of Annie's body, radiating into the air around her?

It was so good.

"H…Annie." She finished lamely, tongue heavy and daft in her mouth. "Doing… laundry?"

"Drying." The girl answered happily, indicating the rotating dryer next to her. "There isn't one in my apartment."

"Ah." Kaylee looked down at her own basket. "Pipes're bust in mine. Good old Saffron engineering."

"Indeed." The silence jumped into life again between them as Kaylee started her wash. "So. Haven't seen you 'round."

"Busy is all." Kaylee replied, freezing up again. It was useless. Her plans had been foiled. Annie was too good. Too perfect. She couldn't just go get another one, not now they'd met again. She threw a glance over her shoulder at the girl, humming quietly as she checked the timer on her dryer. Kaylee never let her toys stay in her life beyond a couple of weeks, a month at most. They didn't matter. They were just fun until they broke, like all toys and games. Her fingers hammered nervously on the washing machine buttons, and, biting her lip, she rested her forehead against the cold metal, feeling an idiot. It would not suffice this time. Kaylee grimaced. She'd have to make an effort. How alien that word sounded in her mind! Effort. Meaning. Happiness. Just words. Strange words at that. They rang bitter on Kaylee's lazy tongue.

"I'm becoming too fucking sentimental." She muttered under her breath, feeling a rising wave of nauseous madness crash over her, strong and potent, catching her off guard and sending her knees weak. She would not cry. She would not call out to Dan. Dan isn't here, she reminded herself, small, quiet words against the raging sea. Dan is gone. They're all gone.

"Do you have a dollar spare?"

And that voice! Kaylee turned, but shied away, afraid that Annie might see the glimmer of insanity in her eyes. She shook her head, teeth gritted and mouth twisted with the pressure. No. Kaylee had nothing to spare, since she had nothing for herself to begin with.

"Shame. I suppose I'll have to deal with slightly damp uniform." A touch on her shoulder was all that it was. A light, friendly thing, barely a brush. Warmth flooded into her, and she turned around again to see Jimmy in front of her, smiling his goofy smile. Her little boy. Her stolen brother. A blink later she was back in reality, with Annie staring at her with concern between her furrowed brows. Not this again. Kaylee hated having to distinguish reality from fantasy. "Fuck…" she drew in a breath through pursed lips to steady herself. Words, well-rehearsed and much needed, came tumbling out of her mouth like skittles falling at a bowling alley. "We're going out. Now."

"…What, right now?"

"Yeh. C'mon." Kaylee grabbed Annie's hand and roughly pulled her out of the launderette.

"But- Kaylee, my laundry!" She protested to the deaf ears of a girl who'd made her mind up. Kaylee expertly navigated the winding alleys of Saffron in their dark yellow gloom, striding from streetlight to streetlight. She pulled her Team Rocket cap out of her pocket and jammed it on her head as they alighted at a grubby off-license. Kaylee entered with a confident, assured gait and made straight for the spirits section. Annie looked around nervously; she'd never been in a shop like this before. She was underage, too, and the clerk obviously picked up on her nervousness and gave her an unsettling stare.

"Just this." Kaylee said gruffly, setting two bottles of cheap pecha run down on the counter. The clerk looked about to refuse her, but then his eyes caught on the insignia sewn into her cap and froze.

"Yes, Miss." He said, ashen-faced, and took the security chips off the alcohol. "Forty dollars."

Kaylee gave him thirty and left. Annie scuttled behind her, looking over her shoulder to check the clerk; he wasn't protesting. In fact, he looked happy to have her gone. Annie hadn't realised that Team Rocket held so much power.

Kaylee opened her phone and texted something before opening one of the bottles of rum and taking a long swig before offering it to Annie.

"Kaylee, what are we doing?"

"Getting fucked." She answered, closing her phone and beginning to walk again, thin time into the even darker, seedier parts of Saffron's dirty underbelly.

"Why?"

Kaylee stopped in her tracks, looking back in a sort of cold, distant horror. How could Annie not know why? How could she still be swimming above the murk that was life, the useless sludge in which resides the lowest of the low, the criminals and the wastrels, the knaves and the whores? Was Annie so naïve as to be blind to the way that Kaylee treated her? Kaylee wanted to destroy her, to grasp at her light, to covet and hide in the darkness with the fading glimmer of hope behind her eyes… why could Annie not see that?

"Because we can." She answered, words tumbling from her hollow chest to the thick air and smog around them. "Because that's all there is."

"That's not true." Annie frowned, stepping closer, her light almost blinding. "We can go see a movie, or out for a meal, or something."

Kaylee grabbed her shoulder, anger and tears swelling up inside her. "That all… it's nothing. It kills your mind. There's… there's only being absent that is true. How can I be myself? I'm fucked. So monumentally fucked, Annie."

She thrust the rum into her hands; the two of them almost close enough to touch noses. Annie could smell the rum on Kaylee's breath, the cold puffs of water vapour from her nostrils, her wide, watering eyes. She couldn't put her finger on what was wrong, but she'd agreed to stay with Kaylee when they were in the mountains, so she would. She took a sip of the burning rum and tried to smile. Kaylee's body, which had been tense to exploding, deflated in a dramatic way, her grip loosening. Annie realised that she was walking a fine line of appeasement.

"Let's go."

They were absorbed by the gloom and thick, cloying air of the machinery district, where the hum and thrum of the factories never stopped. Annie mirrored Kaylee's body language carefully, taking some rum when Kaylee did, moving closer or further away depending on Kaylee's usual zigzagging stride. They came about ten minutes later to a shanty town. Annie looked around, appalled at the ramshackle corrugated iron huts, the ragged cloth lean-tos and the rough wooden shacks. Dirty men, women and children shuffled around; it may have been late evening, but they were still awake, many starting night shifts in the factories or indulging in illegal practices. It was the latter that Kaylee was here for, naturally.

They met a short, long-fingered man who lived in a roughly circular enclosure of wood, iron and plastic sheeting. Annie didn't catch his name; Kaylee appeared to know him well enough.

"S'good ta thee ya, mith." He lisped, opening a thick cast-iron safe and taking out a small pouch. "S'been bad while you've awaint."

"I'm sure." Kaylee said, receiving the pouch and offering him a thick wodge of notes. "Sorry about the short notice."

"S'fine." He said. "I know how difficult 'tis ta get dethent thit, what with you lot owning it all."

"Watch your mouth." She snapped, and he recoiled against the wall. "There's a single reason you're still around."

"Yeth mith, of courth, mith." He bowed low and afraid. Kaylee grabbed Annie's hand and pulled her out of the hovel. They left the shantytown quickly, leaving Annie to wonder what all that had been about. Luckily, Kaylee was in a garrulous mood, probably from the rum, and chatted as they walked back towards the Rocket condominiums.

"See, Team Rocket owns most of the drug trade in Saffron," She explained, "Cuz pokémon are profitable, but drugs are easy. But, to make profit, our drugs are shite. Dickshite, really- I worked for four months doing that shit, scientist bods putting all sorts of crazy stuff into it… addictive stuff, mind-altering stuff. Guy I knew did too much Rocket E, ended up totally messed up. Became like a robot. You could give him orders and he'd do them. Couldn't think for himself, like he was plugged into a hive mind or something."

She shivered at the thought and had some more rum. "We're going back to yours."

"We are?"

"Yeh." Kaylee said nonchalantly. She didn't want to be in her own apartment tonight. "We can get our shit from the launderette on the way- look, here."

The collected their washing or drying and went back to Annie's flat. The whole place smelled of newness, of potential, and Kaylee found that she liked it much more than her own, worn flat, though her hands kept twitching, wondering what it would feel like to desecrate the place. Annie's hands went for the light switch, but Kaylee stopped her.

"No. This." She went into the utility cupboard and prized open the lighting box, flipping a couple of small switches. The blue and green emergency lighting came on, low and threatening- Kaylee loved it. If there was an emergency or an attack on HQ, this lighting came on in all Rocket apartments and households, but Kaylee and Raf had found out how to trick the system and enjoyed the strange, ultraviolet, luminous atmosphere that it created.

"Wow." Annie said, almost obscured, her face and hands glowing white but her black-clad body covered by darkness. "This is creepy."

"If you think it's trippy now, just wait." Kaylee pulled out a small, flat pill from the pouch and held it up to the blue light. "Tab of acid. Have fun."

"Wait." Annie said, vaguely remembering what happened last time she'd partaken in any illicit substances. Quite suddenly, she felt flushed and nervous, and took a step back, bumping into the sofa. "Kaylee, I don't think…"

"That's right. Don't think." Kaylee stepped closer, her eyes flashing an eerie green. "Just do. Give it to me. It's mine."

"What?" Annie asked, looking down at herself. "I don't have anything of yours, Kaylee."

Kaylee lunged, faster, blurred by the strange lights, impossibly fast considering how much she'd drunk. Annie wasn't fast enough and found herself pinned to the sofa, Kaylee bearing down on her, taut and powerful.

"Stop!" She squeaked. "Kaylee, we're not… it was just once!"

"It should have been." She murmured, running her fingers across Annie's cheek, pushing the small, smooth tablet into her mouth. She had no choice but to swallow it, and felt it slide down her throat like the fuse of a bomb. "Don't worry, honey, I'll get it this time."

"Get wha-" Annie started to say, but was cut off by Kaylee's mouth against hers, harsh, taking, forceful. She pressed herself tightly against Annie's body, jerking until there was no way out. The sofa moved on the carpeted floor and in a flurry, and they toppled down onto the soft, downy carpet with a dull thud. Annie's head spun with the alcohol and she felt herself go hot and tingly. Above her, Kaylee grasped and gripped, her tongue making deep, frenzied rakes into Annie's mouth, her body tense.

Annie wanted to get out. She wanted to leave, to crawl into bed and fall asleep on clean linens, but what Kaylee wanted, Kaylee got. Annie hadn't had a boyfriend before, and other than Kaylee, Hugh was the only person she'd ever kissed. It was a strange feeling, to be acted upon as though she were a doll. It wasn't right. She was a doormat again, a whispish ghost of a girl to be trampled over like a unwanted bellsprout growing up between the cracks of a busy pavement.

She wasn't that any more! Hadn't she stood in front of the mirror and promised herself that she was older, different, new? The thrumming heat that was pooling in her stomach suddenly surged like an angry grimer around her body, filling her with a wild fervour, a consuming… she supposed it must be lust; lust for everything, lust to prove herself, lust to exact some sort of control over Kaylee, to establish herself, to live.

With a great push, she grabbed Kaylee's arms and rolled her over, landing on top, straddling Kaylee's waist. Surprised with herself, Annie paused for a moment, breathing heavily. Kaylee looked up at her, confused, a strange glazed look in her eyes, as though she wasn't quite present.

"No!" She said. "I take it! It's mine!"

"I'm not yours." Annie growled, pushing her back down onto the floor. "I'm my own. I own myself. What the hell are you tripping on?"

Kaylee screeched and squirmed under her grip, clutching onto Annie's hair, trying to pull them back over. Annie launched in for a kiss to silence the guttural snarling, and the two clashed in some sort of battle. Kaylee tore at Annie's clothes, roughly snatching her shirt off, not even taking her time, just tearing. She left red lines of pain where her nails had dug into Annie's flesh. They writhed and wrestled on the floor in some sort of primal, feral war, clutching, clenching, reaching out for an intangible supremacy. Annie was fighting for her pride, Kaylee for other reasons entirely. Annie prized her skirt off; marking long, thin grazes along Kaylee's hips. They danced like shadowy creatures under the emergency lights, one pitted against the other. It wasn't like the dopey, ethereal night in the snow; they were angry, visceral, lustful beasts. Annie ran her hands along Kaylee's thick, toned thighs in a brief moment of slowness before she felt a deep pain in her collarbone; Kaylee was trying to bite her. She pushed her down, but not before a trickle of blood had run from a deep tooth-shaped puncture of her flesh. It was a sharp ache, but the sight of blood just made Annie angrier. She reared up and plunged deep into Kaylee's body with no ceremony, no warning, no practice. Kaylee screamed and froze mid-buck, for a brief second placated from her carnal rampage. Annie blinked, looking at Kaylee's wide-eyed face, free from her heavy frown, or the nonchalant quirk of her eyebrows, on anything at all. Just… blank. Like a canvas. Like Annie's homeland. Like Annie.

Furious at the reflection of herself, she probed deeper, in and then out, erratic, sloppy, fast, slow, it didn't matter, it just was. She slowly slipped into a sort of connected yet absent state looking into Kaylee's frenzied eyes, flitting anywhere but the place she most wanted them to look, breath coming faster, deeper, thrashing bodies and muscles straining, tendons stretched to snapping point, until-

"Aghhh!" Kaylee screamed, squirming, tightening, lashing out with reckless abandon. Annie was tossed to the side, her hand nearly breaking at the odd angle. She thumped against the side of the sofa and lay there, breathing, watching Kaylee writhe like a vulnerable ledyba on its back, unable to flip itself over. Twenty seconds later, she fell limp and still, thin groans wafting from her throat into the heavy air. Annie groped around in the dark for the sofa and pulled herself up, a burning victory consuming her. As she stood, she felt a rush to her head and had to lean on the sofa to support herself. Kaylee sat up and grinned goofily, crawling over, naked body glistening under the low lights, grey eyes tiny pricks of mirth.

"Silly girl," she crooned as Annie's eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed back onto the floor. "You can't have me. I'm nothing to have in the first place."

She stroked Annie's hair softly, dopily, her features slack from pleasure. "Twenty minutes is about the kick-in time, Annie. Can you feel it? Can you feel the world… dropping away? Like a shed skin?"

The lights were dancing now, stretching, whorls of colour, whirlpools, sucking Annie towards them. She panicked and scrambled away, but found heavy chains of darkness covering her. Kaylee loomed atop her, every bit the Rocket she was inside, festering, dead, hollow, haunted, teeth jagged and broken, eyes yellow with death and pink with want. Her uniform came from the stroking tendrils of the darkness and clothed her softly as though she belonged there; black shirt, black skirt, black cap. The letter R leered at her, dripping and hungry, red like the blood trickling onto the floor.

"The audacity." Kaylee said, her voice like a disappointed schoolteacher. "You dare to touch me? Sinner… dirty sinner!"

"I… I didn't..." Annie begged, her words evaporating even as she said them. "I'm sorry."

"You will be." Kaylee breathed. "You've got hours until that tab wears off. I'm going to own you. I'm going to fuck you. Fuck you until there's none of it left, you hear me! It isn't yours, it's his! You've taken it!"

Senseless.