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It started outside of Beaver Bush. The first time Ziggy heard the whispers that scared the absolute shit out of him. HER voice that still haunted his nightmares and dogged his steps. Knowing she was out there had him all but crawling out of his skin. She could be in the grass, or on the roof, fucking with him.
That had to be it. Because if it wasn't...if it wasn't actually her...
Then Ziggy was going crazy...
It didn't end there. Once the Ranger Station was up and running again it happened again. Ziggy had dumped all of himself into the restructure. Interviews, meetings, working with Tessa and Conan to make their department a thriving place with new faces and familiar. He was so busy he barely slept. It was something to focus on, work towards. It was finally settling down when he heard it again.
He was overwhelmed after it all started to settle. And he just wanted to be alone. So he did just that. A few days off that spiraled into weeks. He was so alone that he stopped going to work. Then he stopped leaving the apartment. He stayed in watching 80's movies. His phone lay forgotten on the nightstand, and he slept when Dark and Rhodes were home.
That was when it happened again.
Ziggy had been brushing his teeth before he headed out to the living room to resume his 80s movie binge. The last part of his nightly ritual before he went to bed. He had a few hours, Dark and Rhodes were out so he could pass out on the couch if he wanted. He was just spitting toothpaste into the sink when a whisper just behind his ear made him shiver in horror. "Ziggy."
It was her voice. Ziggy whipped around so fast his hand itching for the gun he'd left in his holster in the bedroom. He 1000% expected her to be right behind him in the small bathroom. But all he saw was the door and Dark's robe hanging from the hook. Ziggy stood at the bathroom door for a long moment. Opening the door meant she could be out there. How has she found him? But it wasn't outside the realm of possibility for her to know about the apartment.
"Oh fuck, you pussy just fucking open the door." Ziggy finally worked himself up into forcing the door open. He sprinted for the bedroom and tripped into a roll towards where his holster lay on the bedside table. With his firearm in hand he cleared the bedroom with shaking aim and cold sweat pouring down his back. He worked his way into and around the rest of the apartment.
There's was no one here. The only noise he could hear was his rapid breathing and the ambient sounds of the city seeping through the closed windows. "Ziggy."
"Nope," Ziggy shook his head. He was not going fucking crazy. Ziggy dressed with trembling hands and was out the door before he fully devolved into a panic attack. Ziggy's breathing didn't slow until he was inside Beaver Bush.
She wasn't there. She wasn't in the apartment. That wasn't possible. He needed a distraction. Ziggy called Flop, he knew he was interrupting Flop's work schedule. But he just needed to hear his husband. To know what was real. In seconds they were together. Why was Flop so good at just being where he needed him in the moment? Yelling, arguing, laughing, it didn't matter. The noise was exactly what he needed. The fear faded away.
This was real.
Ziggy felt balanced again. Listening to Toretti and Flop argue let him feel centered. In the moment and not on the precipice of a ptsd fueled nightmare. But after, when he'd felt secure enough to go back home. Reality hit.
He really had been alone when he heard Fae's voice. He didn't know what it was that had triggered the ptsd. He needed to ignore it. It wasn't real. He was not crazy.
It didn't stop. Crazy was looking more and more apt by the day.
Random moments where her voice creeped in. Ziggy was on edge. It kept happening until he was practically hiding in his own apartment. Where he knew he was alone. Her voice whispered to him, and it was impossible because there was no one there!
His phone was turned off, so there was no active call or app to speak to him to explain it away. The civilian radio she used to contact him was long since thrown away. And she wasn't in the apartment, he checked...multiple times a day.
It was getting to be too much. Ziggy was freaking out. He was actually losing his mind. The stress was eating at him and now his gun was glued to his hand. Of course that was when the cravings hit. That yawning hunger for cocaine that dogged his steps. It spiked hard with how rocked he was with anxiety.
It wasn't hard to disguise himself. With his hair gone all it took was a hoodie and sunglasses. Ziggy snuck out of the apartment while Rhodes and Dark slept. So out he went, he walked hoping to clear his mind but all of did was make his mind swirl with fear and anticipation.
It always felt so insurmountable to source his vice of choice. So many hoops to jump through, being shady and secretive. Fighting it was so hard usually he could get away with not using. Like if he couldn't get it he was allowed to stay sober. But if he got his hands on it...
It had gotten easier with Flop to distract him. With work to focus on. But Fae was out on the streets now, who knew where. And he'd taken the demotion to help bolster his co-workers. To keep their department running the way they'd always meant to. His love want bad right now.
But that didn't change the mounting cravings.
Buying coke when he wasn't trying to source it on duty was laughably easy. Disguised as he was made the dealers near Alta open to selling to him. As a faceless grinder, it was laughably easy. A deal had never been so simple. Just a hand over of his cash and he accepted a few baggies. Ziggy looked down at the small prize. And he felt like a bastard for it.
He sat at a bus stop near the Alta St apartments. He could just imagine it. The rush of the powder up his nose. The numbness that would spread from his nose to his throat. The energy rush that would banish the depressive pall that had hung over him these past weeks. He'd be alert, he'd know if it was just the ptsd then. Ziggy knew his heart rate would pick up. He'd be aware, he'd feel...
He'd feel good.
Ziggy fisted his hand over the baggies and closed his eyes. He could do it right now. He had enough to tide him over make it last. But he also knew he could snort all of it in one go and everything would go away. Ziggy opened a baggie and poured it into the bend of his thumb and forefinger.
Ziggy snorted it faster than any thought to resist could come up. The headrush was instant. Familiar psychosomatic responses. The numbness he'd imagined was spreading down his throat and the moan he let out was borderline sexual. He chased the feeling by rubbing the left over residue on his guns. God it was good, just a little bump like that was so good.
It didn't last. The immediate high never did, not for how heavy is a user he used to be. But for a good few minutes he got the rush. The spread of heat through his body and the thrumming of all that energy sparking across his nerves. It was like he'd never been clean. What had he ever wanted to be clean? He wanted more. He wanted the rest of the baggies. A binge to erase all of the anxiety he's been dealing with.
"Ziggy." Her voice crawled across his ear. He twisted and no one was there. Just someidiots at the drive way of the Alta apartments jumping into their cars. And Ziggy knew in that moment that it wasn't a ptsd episode. Nothing had set him off. None of the moments he'd heard her would have set him off.
It didn't make sense for it to be a ptsd episode. Not now that his head was clear of any thoughts of self hate our fear of being labled crazy. The high was fading, and get voice melded down into music. Her songs. He'd never have forgotten even if he wanted to.
Ziggy powered on his phone and pulled up her messages. Nothing. She never showed up without texting. So he was actually hearing shit.
Ziggy rubbed at his face. If it wasn't ptsd. Or at least not all of his ptsd what was it? Fuck, he could barely string any thoughts together, with the high fading. Another bump? Yeah. That would help. Ziggy froze as he looked down at the baggies.
"Goddamn it." He cursed.
He scrolled to Flop's contact. He needed-...he needed help. There were four baggies left. He could do another and feel so much better. Flop would be ashamed of him, pissed even. He'd gone out of his way to leverage his contacts with various gangs to prevent anyone from selling Ziggy coke. His own idiotic way of caring.
And Ziggy just cleaned a bag out. Blood dripped from his nose and Ziggy lifted his fingers to it. He looked at the red on his fingertips for a long minute. He couldn't do this again. He couldn't...he couldn't fight it like this. Not with her disembodied voice in his ears. Her demented music coming from no where.
Ziggy stood up and walked pointedly to the trash can. He had to work up to it. But he forced his fingers open to drop those four precious baggies into the garbage. He pinged for a taxi and in moments one pulled up.
"Airport." Ziggy said as he tried to remind himself that he didn't actually need the baggies. That he wasn't going to crawl into the bin to get them back.
At the airport he stood looking at departures and then hunted for a rehab facility in any of the cities in his phone. He compared until he had an option that accepted new patients 24/7. Then he booked the next flight out of Los Santos.
He just...had to go.