When it is visible, there's dim light pouring out of the windows that drips down the side of the house to pool and flood the mostly dead front lawn with its presence. Kash pulls into the cracked driveway, steps out of the car and jogs up to the front door. Sprocket takes a deep breath and leaves the car as well, smelling the scent of liquor and weed underlined with a tinge of mildew and must. It gets worse as they approach, catching up to Kash at the door.
"You ready for this dude? It's a good one." Kash flashes them a crocodile smile, wide and toothy. They give him a weak thumbs up. Arguing this was useless, they already knew that. These people here didn't care that he had been admitted, they wanted a good time. Some of them probably needed help themselves.
They're proven right as the door swings open, and it's like a wall of smoke hits them. Kash laughs and waltzes in, there's a swagger in his saunter that's gut wrenching. Sprocket follows after him, walking through giant meat walls of people's bodies. They've been taken to a couch, ragged and beat up, with a coffee table in front of it. Atop is a bong with its bowl packed, a brick of presumably cocaine, needles full of who knows what, tabs of acid, and a candy dish full of chalky smartie like discs. That one Sprocket can't be sure of, he did always change it up.
"Welcome to the party, my friend! Killer, right?" Kash flops on the couch, and grabs one of those syringes off the table. "Or it will be, once you get it started."
"I get it started?" Sprocket asks, deliberately looking away as Kash starts wrapping elastic beneath his left shoulder.
"Yup! First one's on you, pick your poison and let hedonism begin. Only the best for my good buddy." His smile widens. Sprocket shudders a bit, but keeps their face neutral. They look at the table for a moment before reaching for the bong after some deliberation. As Kash lines up his needle, he looks expectantly at them. They pull their pack of matches from their pants pocket, looking around the room then back to their friend. His eyes glimmer with some kind of sick excitement. They use their teeth to strike the match. The room cheers, they light the bowl and take a large inhale. Sprocket watches as Kash sticks the needle into a vein with a well trained ease, the excitement finally leaving his eyes to be replaced with an ecstasy that they recognized the look of.
Kash says something but Sprocket doesn't listen as they stand up and go to the kitchen, handing off the bong to someone else they don't look at on the way. They breathe out the hit as they rifle through the cabinets to find the vodka that was stashed away. They forgo the glass and drink directly from the bottle as they return to the couch. He's still there, now speaking with some people they don't know. They sit wordlessly down next to him, taking another swig from the bottle.
"There they are! I was just telling them about that one time that we went on that hike and I ate shit and it was soooo funny." Kash chuckles to himself a bit. "You were all like 'Oh my god dude are you okay we gotta get you some help'."
“Because you scraped your knees so bad I could see the bone and you couldn't feel it." They respond. "You wanted to keep going."
"Ha ha, yeah but it was so funny though like...it was so funny we have to do it again sometime man. The scars are gnarly!" He begins lifting up his pant leg to show the people he was sharing the joke with. They stand and walk away, going to conduct business to get a fully packed joint to themselves so they can step outside to smoke without fear of dropping glass onto the ground.
The earth beneath their feet is cold, they hadn't grabbed their shoes before they had gone out. The rocks hurt a bit, but they cannot bring themselves back inside while Kash recites the same story to everyone. They sit down, taking a sip of the vodka and chasing it with a hit and repeating until everything is unfocused.