havokistic

[havokistic]

AUGUST

He could’ve lied: the thought always occurs too late because he’s never gone through with it. Keeping silent was usually easier than a lie. An old tactic he returns to as the man looks at him. Really looks. The words that follow make sense of the expression moments before, some images he’d conjured up with August in the centre of them. The knife nearly slips from his fingers, faltering. One. A small flick of the wrist and he flips the letter opener around, it slides down to the hilt. Two. Another flick, tip caught between his fingertips. Back in place. August’s gaze flicks down to the book the man had put aside earlier.

“I —-” Joel said as much, once. August felt proud in his uniform at first, revelled in that attention when he was looked at not like some town oddity but a part of the unit. Someone who belonged. A skin he finally fit into. Then he drove into that IED and shredded fabric and burnt skin melted together and Joel couldn’t comment on his uniform anymore. He rolls his left shoulder. Once. Twice. Back in place. “I’d sell it if you’re interested in something that isn’t… decades old.”

Interesting. He looks back to the man, it’s a safe place to let his attention settle again now he’s turned back to the pendant and a curious looking set of lenses. “Yeah,” he says, “Is it… is it anything special?”

For a brief moment the man seems caught off guard, a thought it takes him too long to finish, a knife that sits less gracefully in his fingers. Aldan takes what smug satisfaction he can from that, lips pressed together in a quiet smile. Even if he seems to miss the point. If he’s intentionally oblivious it wouldn’t surprise him. It’s a small town, people lived in fear of rumors as much as they did monsters under their beds.

It’s still curious to him that he even offers, and he’s quick to indulge that curiosity. “And why would you want to do that?” he asks, even if his gaze doesn’t return to him. Attention still settled on the necklace in hand.

It’s the purple lens that finally shows him something, a darkness around the edges that whispers of something dark and dangerous hanging from his fingers  “Oh it’s almost certainly haunted. But don’t worry. I pay a premium for haunted.”  

The lenses get flipped back together and settled on the counter before he’s ducking his head and digging around underneath it. A hardbound book that lands heavily on its surface, a small gold scale that he rests the pendant on top of.  “I can’t believe you’re making me work today.”

He flips the book open, flipping through pages of his own small, neat script, loose notepaper tucked in the edges. “So. Based on gold weight, plus the whole haunting thing...” He uses one of the pages to make a few notes, quick calculations scribbled on the side. “I can offer you about... twenty-seven, fifty. Two thousand, seven hundred fifty.” He corrects himself on it almost immediately. “Does that sound fair?”

#threads: aldan; #aldan x august; #axa: 01;

[havokistic]

BECKETT

He sees the moment she changes. Sees the moment that his words hit somewhere close to serious for her and it leaves him just as quiet, watching her to see how she’ll respond. He likes her. Hell, maybe some days he thinks it’s turning into something like love. But there’s a wall being built up there because every time he thought he started feeling it, she’d exit stage right. Straight out of his life for weeks on end without a word otherwise. 

He’d meant the words. That he at least deserved to be told when she was leaving. He wasn’t even asking for her to let him know when she’d be back, just some word that she was gone. So he wasn’t left wondering. She agrees to it, he thinks, and gives him a safe word, but it leaves him studying her for another quiet moment because he can’t tell if she’s taking the words seriously or not. The gravity of them, the realness of them maybe, but not the words themselves. He could keep pushing, keep ripping into her but at this point he doesn’t want a fight and doesn’t know what it would achieve. 

The quiet avenue, that’s the road he decides to take. Just staying quiet with a small smile turning the corner of his lips and it gives her the opportunity to ask her next question. He doesn’t answer her right away either, just leans there against the bar with his hands against the lacquered wood watching her. A bitter part of him wanted to say yes. Yes, he was mad at her. She couldn’t just show back up and expect him to drop everything and take her home with him. 

But the reality of it was, he knew what he was getting himself into when he’d let her do it the first time. And the second. And every time after that. He knew what he was getting into now, even as the words were formulating on his tongue. That eventually she’d leave again and no matter what she said tonight, he wasn’t going to get a fucking Beetlejuice. 

“Place is a mess,” he gives a facetious excuse, shaking his head, flat out untrue words because if anything, he wasn’t a messy person. “Dirty laundry everywhere,” he adds, like he’s really about to turn her away because of something as small as that. But he watches her face with a small glint to his eye, because she probably already knows she’s back under his skin. Probably already knows he’d been ready to take her home the moment he saw her sit down at his bar. 

There’s a moment where he’s quiet, she feels awkward, and it means his answer matters a lot more than she wants it to. As much as she’d like to pretend it doesn’t mean a thing to her if he turns around and tells her no, there’s a reason she came here, a reason the words left her lips in the first place. An aching pit in her chest, some empty void that she created. Carved out with her own hands, the thing that she summoned, a body buried in the woods.

They aren’t thoughts she ever wants in her head. Every second feels like an attempt to drown them out, to do whatever it takes just to kill the memories. It’s why there’s a drink in front of her, why she keeps coming back to Beckett when someone kinder might just let him go. It’s greedy and selfish that she’s sitting here now at all, more aware than she’d like to be how unfair this push and pull is. She wants him like a band-aid to her own wounds, never mind what kind she might be inflicting in her wake. 

He deserves better. She knows it, he might not, that at his heart he’s a good man. Deserving of someone who can promise him more than a safe word, someone who would stick around. Right now all she can think about is whether she should run, finish her drink and take off before he can tell her no. For as often as she might reject him, it’s nothing she’s ready for.  

He answers before she can run, something more playful than the silence. It’s not a yes, but nothing about his tone makes her think it’s a no.

It still takes her a moment, crooked smile on her lips as she spears another cherry. Trying to let the taste of vodka wash down every trace of awkwardness and fear that still lingers bitterly in the back of her throat. 

“Then you shouldn’t care if I add mine to it.” 

#threads: faith; #faith x beckett; #fxb: 01;

[havokistic]

AUGUST

Cute isn’t the word he’d used for the stuffed bat but each to their own. He watches the smirk, the shopkeep enjoying August’ obliviousness like a private joke. August doesn’t mind, right now, happy to let himself be the butt of a joke without feeling self-conscious. “Unfortunately we were never a Beanie Baby household…” August trails off, the good humor coming easier than usual.

He turns over the album, long fingers trailing down the spine. August enjoys the sensation, a rare moment where he feels invisible. He can watch the other man without worrying about the gaze or attention turning to himself. For a moment. For a few quiet, beautiful moments he’s unaware of himself and instead can watch. 

There’s a shift. Those deft fingers still, never opening the faceless photo album. August lowers the necklace into the man’s open palm, intently watching for some giveaway in the man’s expression, some explanation for what felt like a palpable shift. 

He takes too long a pause before answering. Absently, he picks up a small letter knife in the box, spinning it purely to keep some part of him busy in a comforting, repetitive motion. 

“Afghanistan,” the simple answer that says too much. Probably. Unless this man assumes August had peculiar taste in vacation spots.

Afghanistan the man tells him, and asking why seems like an unnecessary waste of breathe. He can draw his own assumptions, he pays enough attention to the news. War was a repeating cycle, and he’s got something like four hundred years of bloody memories floating in the back of his mind. It makes his teeth feel sharper just thinking of it all, a hunger for violence that sits at odds with how he portrays himself.

For a moment he pictures it, a gun in the man’s hands, dirt and sand etched in the lines of his skin, blood on his hands. Imagining that lingering scent of bleach is from trying to scrub it from his fingers. The knife he’s toying with only contributes, light glinting off metal as it spins. The image is a pleasant one, and he hums quietly in appreciation. 

“I bet you looked lovely in a uniform.”

He toys with the chain in his fingers as he says it, after a moment gaze settling back on the pendant hanging from it. The small etchings on its surface that he was certain provided the only warning on what it might hold. Aldan didn’t possess any real power of his own, but he’d split enough moonshine with witches to pick up a few things.

One of which he reaches for in the desk’s drawer, a set of lenses with glass of varying colors. He holds the first to one eye, gazing through it at the object in his palm. “Interesting. And you want to sell it?”

#threads: aldan; #aldan x august; #axa: 01;

[havokistic]

RUTHIE

Their brother had hardly changed the house. A few of his own touches, here and there. New pictures on the shelves, some new furniture replacing the more dilapidated antiques they’d grown up with. But for the most part, the house was exactly how Ruthie remembered it. From the ugly wallpaper on the walls to the feeling she got when she entered the threshold – all the same as when she was a kid, growing up in this place. 

It wasn’t like she’d never been back here since moving out. She wasn’t like Jeremiah, where once he’d left, he’d stayed gone. She’d come back to visit. A handful of times, mostly she’d gotten her brother to come out and see her, but she couldn’t say they’d stayed close either. She’d been there for the important events. Most of them. But mostly, she’d spread her own wings and if she hadn’t quite taken off the way she’d hope to, it was nothing she’d brought up to her family. 

What was left of it. 

And it had just gotten smaller. While Jeremiah was back, she didn’t know for how long. They’d buried their brother just a couple of days ago and she’d been avoiding a fight with her younger brother by not asking him when he planned to leave. She’d hugged him when she’d seen him show up for the funeral. She’d sat by him on that pew while people talked about their dead brother. She’d drank next to him at the wake. But they hadn’t really…talked. Hadn’t really reconnected and she didn’t know if he planned to do so. She didn’t know if she did either. 

Today, at least, might be the day they both found out. They were back in the house, without the hustle and bustle of funeral goers and neighbors bringing over casseroles. Just the two of them, looking at their dead brother’s things. 

A creak in the doorway has her looking back over her shoulder, turning away from the bookshelf she’d been eyeing some familiar family photos on. Seemed like their elder brother had still held on to some of their fonder childhood memories in the photographs he kept on those shelves. 

Jeremiah’s face came into view and Ruthie felt her lips quirk slightly. “I brought beer,” she tells him, nodding to a six pack in front of her.

There had been a very strong and enduring temptation in Jeremiah to simply leave after the funeral. Pack up what little he’d brought with him, take Nisa, and go. Head back west, or even south, anywhere that wasn’t here, with this old house and those old memories that haunted him just as much as any ghost. The whispers of old fears and old horrors breathing down the back of his neck with every step. It still struck him with a painful sort of irony that it had taken their brother’s death to drag him back here, one more ghost left haunting him.

As loud as that urge was, he hadn’t yet. It felt just as wrong to leave what little was left of his family to pick up the pieces, an aunt currently watching the child his brother had left behind. And it was a childish urge to ask someone else to tell him what was supposed to happen next. 

It’d been years since he’d seen his sister, a few phone calls here and there serving as some poor stand-in for a relationship. It was the best he’d had to offer, when he’d sworn to himself he’d never come back here again, never pass through these halls. And yet, here he was, too many of the same pictures hanging on the walls, the familiar creak of old floorboards.

They likely give him away, the woman turning to face him as he stops in the doorway. Hands in his pockets, posture stiff and uncomfortable as he feels. “Nothing stronger?” 

It’s the closest he has to a joke, some vague attempt at a smile on his lips, the same amount of effort put into meeting his sister’s eyes. It shouldn’t be as hard as it is, but it’s worse than looking at a stranger. It’s some image of the past, when they were all just kids trapped in these walls, his small hand tugging at hers, begging her to stay up and build blanket forts with him instead of sleeping. 

#threads: jeremiah; #jxr: 01; #jeremiah x ruthie;

[havokistic]

@faustmourne 

Baker House had been abandoned longer than Rafe could remember, a hollowed out shell of a home that most nights held the lost, the dregs of a small town that most of its upstanding citizens preferred to ignore. Which made him one of the most popular people to pass through the door, a familiar face that drew howls and loud greetings from a few of the boys already gathered in what was left of the kitchen. He never walked through the door with empty pockets, he just left that way, a few dollars richer and rarely walking straight.

Someone in grandma’s nursing home had broken a hip, which meant tonight he had a handful of Vicodin resting comfortably next to the rainbow colored pills. A wicked grin on his face as he slipped them into willing fingers, the Vicodin he’d already swallowed leaving him hazy and numb as he wandered his way through the house. A stranger in his own skin, in a stranger’s empty home, broken frames on the walls that hadn’t held pictures in years.

He finds Howell in the same place he usually is. But Jacob never greeted him with cheer or the same manic glee that half the people here offered him. Some nights all he got for his troubles was a dead-eyed stare.

“Jakey boy.” His lips split open in a wide grin, before he seats himself on the arm of Jacob’s chair. “Wondered if you’d show.”

#threads: rafe; #rafe x jacob; #rxj: 01;

[havokistic]

JACOB

There’s a moment when Tobias asks him where he’s going, whether he’s got a hot date, that spikes a small surge of veiled anger through his core. There’s a rebellious teenage phase in there that never got the chance to blossom. It has the words none of your damn business or don’t give me the third degree racing through his mind, but none of it shows on his face, nor does it alter the way he pokes at the eggs on his plate. 

“With a cheerleader,” he says out loud, the smallest of smiles turning up the corner of his mouth. It’s a joke and maybe a poor one. Truth was, he didn’t know what he planned to do. There was a spot he liked to go to hang out and who he hung out with all depended on who was already there. A house a few blocks from the old asylum that had an open door policy for anyone with money in their pockets and an itch in their skin. A green love chair in that house he liked to melt into and a picnic table in their creepy backyard he liked to watch the stars on. And no matter how many people came in and out of those doors, no matter how many strangers graced it’s porch, it always felt like he was there alone. Alone with other strangers. He could just fill his lungs with smoke that clouded his mind and shut away the rapidness of his own deterioration. 

It’s nothing he would tell his brother and he can’t say anymore if it’s because his brother’s a cop or if he doesn’t want to be a disappointment or if it’s shame or…if it’s simply that he doesn’t know how to talk to people. Even his own brother. He doesn’t know what Tobias sees when he looks at him anymore. He doesn’t know what he sees when he looks at his own reflection in the mirror. There’s just a wretched, jarring disconnect that makes him feel numb inside. Like somewhere along the line, he’d veered from the path of his own existence and never quite found his footing again. 

“Just out,” he gives his brother with a little more earnestness. He reaches for his own glass of orange juice and takes a sip, watching Tobias. He doesn’t know if the man will push and press, this still unfamiliar territory for them even though they’d been doing this for years. Jacob didn’t ask often, for anything. Didn’t express wants or desires of his own and he wasn’t one for small talk or explanation. 

“Oh, well, in that case be safe.” Tobias tries to joke with him, even with the certainty that there’s no cheerleader. Maybe a hot date, but he can’t say that for sure either. Not that it might be true, or that his brother would even tell him if it was. For a moment it has him ripping the skin from his lips instead of drinking his coffee, fighting the urge to press for better answers. 

Jacob continues before he gets a chance, and it kills that. A shake of his head, his own response just as earnest. 

“C’mon. I’m not trying to...” The words don’t get finished, because nothing good can follow them. He’s not trying to what? Play cop? Play dad? That wasn’t a position he ever wanted to put himself in when it came to his brother, for too many reasons that were already hanging like ghosts in this room. He settles on something more innocuous, a smile he forces across his lips like it might provide some reassurance. “I’m your brother. I’m allowed to worry.” 

And the absence of Jacob’s answer didn’t alleviate any of them. For a moment they feel too much like strangers sitting across from each other, and he knows that’s a burden that sits on his shoulders. He doesn’t know what his brother does with his time when he isn’t with their mother. Still, the urge to demand any better explanation always ground to a halt when he was left swallowing bitter reminders of his own guilt. He hadn’t swept back in, just in time to play hero. He’d crawled back home with his tail between his legs and a family that had gone on surviving without him.

He didn’t have any apologies for that. Nothing that counted for anything when he looked over at his mother, the woman staring off out the door as if she’d forgotten either of her sons were still in the room. Breakfast sitting untouched on her plate, and his stomach sank. Words swallowed because that was what his brother lived with every day.

“I can hang out here tonight, yeah. Just... you know. Call me if you need anything. Hopefully not bail money.” 

#threads: tobias; #tobias x jacob; #txj: 01;

[havokistic]

AUGUST

The man lists things he doesn’t want and, well, he’s probably listed most of the box’s content. August hums in thought, looking at his box of his mother’s crap. Prepare to be disappointed, he thinks. There’s no kitchen appliances. He does pull out a taxidermy bat, though. Purposefully takes it out just to annoy the guy. And because he thought it was actually worth something.

“What’s so special about Beanie Babies?” he asks absently, finding it strange how easy it is to ask. A simple question but a big leap for a man like August. August looks down at his box with a frown. He pulls out a photo album, an old thing, older than America. At least according to his mother. 

After another long moment of searching through his box of crap he pulls out an old necklace. A souvenir from one of his many tours abroad. An old woman sold it to him. August thought it felt important. And old. Instead some of the other soldiers, especially local ones, hated it. “Bought this abroad. Maybe I was hustled by an old woman but…” August shrugs. Even if it’s not worth much, maybe this man could tell him if it was anything of interest. Or an old bit of junk he spent too much money on.

A dead bat is the first thing out of the box, a snort of amusement following it. Despite Aldan’s own words he picks the thing up and turns it over, certain there was a Dracula joke in there somewhere, even if it only amused him. “Cute,” he says, before he settles the thing to the side of the counter, mentally checking that the maybe pile.

Most of the box, he’d probably have kept carrying straight to the garbage. For as much as people liked to collect things, almost none of it was worth anything in the long run. And he was more than qualified to say as much. Even his own collection, the building they stood in stacked in every corner with bits and pieces of history; some days he thought about burning it all to the ground. How much of it would he really miss? 

The question amuses him, smirk on his lips as he reaches out to take the album. “Resale value. You’d be surprised how much you could get for Peanut the Elephant in royal blue.” 

The book gets turned over in his hands, studying the detailing on its spine before deft fingers start to open it. Little shame in his own curiosity whether there were any family portraits left behind, but he pauses in that indulgence when the man holds up a necklace.

That has him stilling, the album in hand temporarily forgotten as he watches it spin, the short story attached to it. His expression doesn’t betray much, but the interest is undeniable. The book getting settled next to the bat before he reaches for it gently, the piece of jewelry and the man who brought it to him suddenly the most interesting thing in the room. “Abroad where?”

#threads: aldan; #aldan x august; #axa: 01;

[havokistic]

AUGUST

August hasn’t slept since stepping foot into that pig-sty. It feels like the stink of the place is still clinging to him. The heavy stench of dust and decay and death settled on him like dust.

They’d been kind enough at the Sheriff’s department to take the old armchair she’d died on out of the house. It was covered in a once-white bed sheet, waiting to be picked up with the rest of the trash. The smell of it still lingered where the chair had sat for years.

That pile of trash on the curb tripled in size by the time he’d cleared out the living room. August can’t even smell the bleach anymore. Couldn’t even see how far he’d gone until he was forced to stop.

At first, he scrubbed at the carpet then found a thread and picked and pulled and found a knife. August dug into the carpet with a kitchen knife and ripped out nails as he went. He only cursed out the place and the dead woman responsible when his shoulder went.

He had to get the fuck out of there. She’d found value in useless junk and nothing else. Unable to leave this house half-done, August piled up the very few belongings of his mother’s that didn’t look like complete trash into a single cardboard box. It did not help his shoulder but it was a reason to leave the house. It was fine, he told himself. It was fine as he walked into town.

The shop is as cluttered as his mother’s home. Things piled up and overlapping and dusty and some of it looks pretty useless. At first. He’s never liked antiques, never understood the point of holding onto old things.

The shopkeep pipes up as he steps in. August drops the box down on the table in front of the man, ignoring his comments. He rolls his left shoulder — Once. Twice. Back in place. — whilst shaking his head. It’s a relief to be greeted like this. Someone who doesn’t know him, August’s just another person with no baggage. Only a box of old crap dumped on his counter.

“That’ll be my next stop,” August says, the faintest hint of a joke hiding in his tired voice, “I want to find out if any of this is worth something… unless you’re too busy with other customers.”

There’s a thud as the box hits the counter, beyond that is a familiar steady beating of the man’s heart now that he’s close enough. Aldan doubts there would ever come a day when he stopped being aware of that sound, and the accompanying itch in the back of his throat.

The comment makes him smile, but he doesn’t lift his head. Gaze skimming over words he’s not quite paying attention to anymore, not that it matters. The pages are already dog-eared, favorite lines highlighted in yellow, and it was hardly the first copy he’d personalized that way. The books he liked less had black lines through them instead, his own version of literature carved from the bones of someone else’s works.

It still takes him a moment, fingers drifting over the page before his thumb turns down the corner of it. Book set aside and attention finally directed towards the man in front of him. “No,” he answers, amused smirk on his lips. “But this is one of my very favorite books. So if there isn’t something more interesting than that in your box I’m going to be very disappointed.”

The man is new, the next part was not. The first year in town it had been almost constant, someone else with a cardboard box of whatever they’d dug out of their grandparents attic, either as an excuse to get rid of it or to see the strange newcomer. Occasionally it was something fun; jewelry that made him wonder how many people here had witches in their lineage, old books they didn’t understand the worth of, a saber someone had held onto from the Civil War, still red and brown with old blood that stained like rust.

For the most part it was garbage. Like the gold leaf on the window spelled “yard sale” instead of “Antiques.” There was little expectation this wouldn’t be the same, but it never stopped him from looking. Curiosity was a trait that hadn’t died yet, and he doesn’t hesitate to start poking through.

“I’ll tell you now I have no interest in old kitchen appliances, taxidermy projects, or children’s toys made after 1984. Unless it’s a Beanie Baby. So, what do you have for me?”

#threads: aldan; #aldan x august; #axa: 01;

[havokistic]

AUGUST

He looks up at the back of Tobias’ head, listens as he dismisses his apology. “Eh,” August shrugs, the small noise isn’t meant to say anything, in particular, maybe a weak attempt at arguing the rejection of his apology. The fact Tobias has said far less than his usual ramblings tells him that the apology was in fact needed. 

There’s the shame that follows it. Sneaking up on him, whispering into his ear how disgusting he his. How wrong he is; how wrong his whole fucking family was. Even though most of his family is nothing but one dead, old woman and piles of old photos with faces meticulously cut out of them. She had a sudden compulsion one day to get rid of them. Get rid of ‘all these extra eyes in this house’. He wishes he could honestly say he didn’t understand that particular obsession of hers. It made sense at the time. Wishes he didn’t understand why she was that disgusting, foul, selfish person. 

You got enough to process already. He stays quiet at that because he’s been told that before. Didn’t reply then either. He twists his bag strap in towards himself. Once. Twice … Once. Twice … Once. Twice.

Tobias stalls, the ‘if’ is enough for him to know it won’t be anything good. It isn’t. He hadn’t considered that. Seeing the body. August assumed he could get the funeral sorted — have a closed casket funeral. Maybe he’d just cremate her and see her through a thick glass window — if at all  — before he gets her in a box. He’s seen dead bodies before, been responsible for more than a handful of them. 

Once. Twice. His bag sits uncomfortably on his shoulder, grip too tight but unable to let go. 

Once. Twice.

How different could this one be? he asks himself, he lies to himself. He knows the difference far too well from a strangers body and the body of a loved one. August nods as he pulls out a bare key chain and attaches the house key to it, it’s a plain silver ring with only a small padlock key to accompany it. “We can go see her now— I’m here already.”

The absence of any real reaction doesn’t make Tobias feel much better about the situation, something that seems just as immediately selfish. This isn’t about making him feel better, or less guilty for being the one to find her, the one to make that phone call. It’s about August, because he’s the one still alive, her son, the next of kin left here to deal with the aftermath. That was always the harder part.

He rocks back on his heels, attention dropping to his shoes for a moment like it’ll make that better for both of them if he’s not looking at him. Less reason to fidget with that bag over his shoulder or pretend this is normal. “Doesn’t have to be now.”

It’s procedure. He doesn’t say it. It’s a cold, callous word, procedure, policy, ways to quantify and streamline someone dying. Maybe it was good, the death toll in this town high enough that sometimes he was more grateful than he should be to have some step-by-step path to follow when another one turned up. It never feels less impersonal, but Tobias didn’t think he could get through this job at all if he couldn’t keep some kind of distance.

He grew up in this place. It was almost never strangers sitting on a slab in the morgue. Today it just struck with more clarity, because he’d grown up next door.  

"It’s...” He hates it, he hates the words before he even says it, has to clear his throat before he says the phrase anyway. “It’s policy. Generally. In these situations. But it’s not a requirement, you know? Not with the way.... not with how she was found.” Dead in her own home, he shakes his head to try and get himself to stop talking. It never works. “It’s just to clear everyone’s asses so no one buries the wrong body. If you want her buried. Or... whatever you want. Or she wanted. If you talked about that or she left a will or-” 

He practically takes a chunk out of the side of his mouth trying to get himself to shut his mouth and stop talking. It seems a safe guess that the man hasn’t even been to the house yet. Maybe he didn’t know if there was a will stashed somewhere safe.

He blows out a breath before he tries again. “So, honestly, if you’re not up to it just say the word.”

#threads: tobias; #tobias x august; #txa: 01;

[havokistic]

The quiet is nothing new, the sound of vehicles and voices left distant and muffled. Barely more than whispering compared to some of the cities he’d called home, and Aldan was still deciding whether that was better or worse. Sometimes he missed the noise. Most of the time he missed the people, because they’d been better at entertaining him. Instead he was here, tipped back on his chair, fingers idly skimming the pages of a book before. Still, he’d always had a soft spot for Kerouac.

There’s a quiet chiming when the door opens and sets off the small silver bell. The smell follows, sharpened senses catching the overpowering scent of bleach. It’s almost nostalgic, dragging the memory to the forefront of his mind; his knees pressed against hardwood floors, hands scrubbing feverishly to try and get the bloodstains out. Curses on his tongue, both for the dead man, and the loss of his own temper.

He was controlled, but he wasn’t perfect.

His gaze settles on the man briefly, noting that jawline first and foremost. With it comes an almost unshakeable certainty that he wasn’t from here. At least, no one who’s been in this town in the last six years, and he’s certain he would’ve remembered. Maybe not by name, because half the time he didn’t remember those anyway, but the face at least.

The box is the last thing he notes, taped together with odds and ends protruding from the top. All of it’s enough to leave him curious, not enough to allow himself to show it. Attention dropping back to the book, fingers skimming idly along the edge of the pages as he calls out to the man.

“The dumpster’s out back. It’s probably easier to get to if you go around the building instead of through it.”

@august-merrick

#threads: aldan; #aldan x august; #axa: 01;

[havokistic]

AUGUST

‘That’s—’ Tobias offers a thin smile. August flashes one back. He continues offering to help and August wants it to be simply a sheriff doing his duty but he’s too earnest. Like his kid neighbor again, wanting to be friends with the older boy next door. August has to actively remind himself he’s not so young anymore. Saying that, August doesn’t outright brush him off, in an effort to be polite, “If I think of anything, I’ll know where to ask.”

Although that just keep it going attitude doesn’t last — of course it doesn’t. The next offer to accompany him back won’t even be entertained. “No,” August answers too quickly before taking a moment to compose himself and continue in a more even voice, “No, thank you, Tobias. I’ve —- We’ve taken up enough of your time already. I can handle the rest of it.” Said like her death was an inconvenience. Which it was. Is. Depends on the state of the house.

Perhaps she’s even done more damage with her death. All August knew about the Howell patriarch’s death was through his mother and her cruel words that boiled down to his being a ‘selfish man, ending things like that’. She kept telling August about the fact people shit themselves after death. He doesn’t know why but she could never stop repeating that fact. Would bring it up every time another mystery death cropped up in town. Disgusting. Foul. Selfish. That’s what she’d say. Disgusting. Foul. Selfish.

He looks up from the ground as Tobias begins moving and talking. He follows with quiet, deliberate steps. Like he could disappear if he’s careful enough like no-one will notice him. 

“Did you— You were the one that found her, right?” he begins, waiting only for a moment of affirmation, he bulldozes over anything Tobias might say to get this out, “I’m sorry. Sorry, you had to be the one ‘cause knowing her… it wasn’t a pretty sight. I probably should’ve checked in on her more.”

The scene Tobias must’ve walked in on would not have been a pleasant one — and not only because of the elderly corpse. She was sick, a sickness that made him who he was, some days he felt like nothing other than a violent reaction to her. She hoarded things; boney knuckled fingers gripped onto anything and everything till they’d spoil on her. His grip was looser. Metaphorically.

There’s no telling how much of the place Tobias had seen before the discovery. When August was home he did his best to keep curtains drawn and stopped people from coming into the house. Ms. Merrick never cared what the neighbor’s thought of her. He stops with enough space between them to keep himself comfortable.

He twists the haversack’s strap. Once. Twice. Back in place. August holds his hand out for the house keys to be dropped into his open palm. “You’ve saved me a walk back here already, that’s enough.”

Tobias maintains that thin smile for another minute, capable of recognizing the answer he gets as the rejection it was. He can’t even say he expects less from the stoic figure in front of him. Even if he needed help, he doesn’t expect he’ll call, and maybe grasping onto the thin idea of friendship was putting too much stock in nostalgia. That always seemed to be his downfall, but the sharp ‘no’ he gets at that next offer of help kills any thought that he should keep arguing.

Instead he just nods his head, leading the way towards the back of the station.

No. It wasn’t pretty. He doesn’t have to open his mouth to say as much. August knows it, he’s the one that says it, and Tobias almost feels secondhand embarrassment for that. It doesn’t take much more than August’s apology to know that it wasn’t some place he, or anyone, was really welcome. A rotting labyrinth inside the walls of that house, a crumpling museum to a woman’s life with far too many mementos that belonged in the landfill. Instead they just made it harder to pinpoint where the smell where was coming from.

Still, he didn’t give voice to the thought that it was better he found her that way than her own son. It seemed like too cruel an image to carry around with him, the kind that his brother got stuck with when he came home to find their father swinging there. Kharma cycling back around, maybe, but then maybe that was grasping for too much meaning in one more death.

Either way, he shakes his head to dismiss whatever remorse the other man is trying to offer him. This town, he’s already seen worse. At least her death was natural. At least they found the body. The bulletin board in the lobby was full enough with black and white printouts of missing faces, too many of them, and too many that had been lost for years.

“You don’t need to apologize August.” His back’s still to him, keys jingling as he lets himself into the evidence room. "Wait here a sec.”

It doesn’t take much more than that to reemerge with his mother’s house keys. Placing them in the open hand before he locks the room back up. “Situations like these, it isn’t anybody’s fault. And you’ve got enough to process already.”

He doesn’t try to make assumptions on what might fall under that category. August’s relationship with his mother seemed... complicated, and any more than that was probably none of his business. The woman hadn’t struck him as kind or nurturing, but saying as much when she was dead and her son was the one in the room with him seemed cruel somehow. She was still his mother. She was still dead.  

“If...” He starts, stalls on the question because it’s not one he really wants to ask. But he’s still wearing a badge, he still has a job. “If you’re up to it. Coroner’s office prefers it if a member of the family identifies the body. But if you’re not, just say the word.”

#threads: tobias; #tobias x august; #txa: 01;

[havokistic]

AUGUST

The confidence slips away as the familiar face appears from a doorway. Tilted back in his chair, greeting him with surprise. Surprise like he hadn’t only hours earlier told him he’d found his mother’s forgotten corpse amidst her trash. Tobias, of course, used gentler language than that. The words used to explain it wouldn’t change the image of it, though. His mind never relented on that side of things. Describe it in a gentler way and August will find a way to make it worse.

August always found it was easier to keep an even-keeled attitude when he the other person’s a stranger. Or someone he fully intended on keeping a stranger. It was much easier when he had a uniform — a set persona for the world to greet him as — it feels wrong standing here in civvies whilst his kid-neighbor is wearing a Sheriff’s uniform.

Tobias asks the same question twice. How’ve you been? Goes too far back for them. How’re you doing? Is too personal. A mistake Tobias catches himself on, even if it’s too late. 

Correction: A mistake Tobias caught himself on before making things worse. I mean, besides… the sentence goes unfinished. August’s expression tightens. He always tried to keep his tics hidden from the younger man. Well, younger boy. They’ve rarely met as men.

—- I mean, besides your dead mother. I mean, besides her going forgotten in her own home, in her own town. I mean, besides… I mean. Besides. -—

August bites down on the inside of his cheek. He tugs at his bag’s strap. Twists it towards his chest. Once. Twice. Back in place. He moves past the ‘I mean, besides.’ He gives an answer, for old time’s sake.

“I’m just being and doing as always,” August answers in a flat tone. Guys in his unit would laugh thinking it was a joke. Others would shift uncomfortably unsure how to respond to what felt awkwardly honest. Both reactions were correct.  “Keys. My mother’s place.” August’s only getting through the keywords in a failed attempt to be quick or casual about this. He clears his throat, gaze dropping to the scuffed linoleum floor, something to focus on instead of Tobias’ face.

“Figured I should ask here before heading over and finding I’m locked out.” He didn’t fancy having to break into his childhood home. Even if it’ll bring back some memories. 

The offered hand doesn’t get taken; Tobias doesn’t take it to heart and the surprise doesn’t last long. It’s not a comfortable position for anyone involved, and he doesn’t know if softened the blow any just because the words came from someone familiar. The man’s not easy to read, and it serves as a quick reminder that most of the memories Tobias has of him are of a teenage boy, one he’d looked up to probably more than he should.

But his dad was dead, his brother had found the body, and his mom had started fracturing. There weren’t a lot of places for him to look that didn’t hurt.

That was someone else’s life. August had left, Tobias had tried to, before ending back where he started. For a moment his fingers return to his coffee cup before that feels clumsy and insensitive too. It gets set aside, rested on someone else’s desk where he thinks it’ll probably end up in the garbage. Arms crossed over his chest instead, the uniform feeling foreign and stiff at the moment.

“That’s...” Good? It’s one more thing he stops himself on. The fact was, he didn’t know what August’s ‘as always’ counted as. If it was even the truth than it didn’t say great things about the direction his life had gone, more likely it was just polite bullshit to get through this moment into the next one. There was never a good answer to that kind of thing after all. Your mother’s dead, but how’s life?

He drops it. His lips press together in a thin smile, something that’s meant to be more comforting than it probably is. “If there’s anything I can do to help... let me know.”

Tobias nods his head at the request, and if that’s all the man ends up asking from him it’s an easy enough one to fulfill. He takes a step back, his mouth and his feet moving at the same time. “Yeah. Of course. Just give me a second... want me to go with you?”

#threads: tobias; #tobias x august; #txa: 01;

[havokistic]

AUGUST

Ok. 

That’s all he’d said. Ok. Oh-kay. The sound was on repeat the entire trip down. It hasn’t relented. The word sounds unfinished. Ok. Okay. August found himself clicking his tongue at the back of his throat. He pressed his lips firmly shut to muffle the incessant clicks. He couldn’t stop. No-one complained. He wouldn’t have stopped if someone had.

Ok.

It’s your mom… is how he’d started in that too gentle voice. Tobias had tried to put it lightly. Maybe he succeeded. Maybe August just didn’t care about her as much as he hoped he did. Maybe it was expected. Maybe he still doesn’t know how to react.

Oh-kay. 

He’s the first one out the coach. His bag never left his grip the entire trip. Watching the road whizzing by, he could pretend it didn’t send him back or make his shoulder burn as long as he kept at it. Fixated on that one word answer till it became static noise. The only other words he could spit out to Tobias was the promise he’d get to town as soon as he could. He apologized, he thinks. Those words hadn’t stuck, just those two syllables. They felt flippant. They were the incorrect reaction.

OK. 

“Ok,” he says to himself at the foot of the station steps. The word’s unsatisfactory now it’s been said out loud. The ‘k’ doesn’t feel as sharp, the ‘o’ lost in it. Finally, he drops it. Or it drops him.

August steps into the station, readjusting his haversack once then twice before settling back where it was before. It’d been a while since he’d actually stepped into the Canaan police station. The first time he’d come in willingly and of his own free will. Technically of his own free will — he can leave if he wanted to. He could. August makes a b-line for first uniformed body around, everything about him too rigid and formal, “I’m looking for Tobias Howell. Can you point me his way?”

@havokistic

The station was bigger than it should’ve been for a small town, and some days Tobias wished it was. That he wouldn’t have bigger problems than a minor domestic dispute, or the neighbor’s dog escaping through a hole in the fence. The kind of normal problems a town this size should’ve had, not the ever growing list of disappearance. How many days since the last suicide, the last murder, the last inexplicable fire.

It was just one of the many reasons he’d dreamed of getting out of here. One more dream he’d had to put aside.

“Here, I’m here.” He leans back out of the sheriff’s office when he hears his name. Coffee in one hand that feels too casual the second his attention settles on the man asking for him.

“Hey. August.” The man’s appearance here shouldn’t really be counted as a surprise, not after that desperately uncomfortable phone call. Still, his eyes widen like it is, stepping forward with a hand offered out in greeting.

“How’ve you been?” It felt stupid the second it passed his lips, a waste of a question when the man’s mother was dead. It was the kind of news he had to give often enough, thankfully not as often to his friends. If they still counted as that. It was hard to remember the last time he’d seen him in town, and if the man’s mother had been too eager to whisper cruel secrets as to exactly why that was, it was just one more reminder that she was dead.

It has him swallowing thickly before he tries again. “How are you doing?” Which might’ve been a better question if he could’ve kept his mouth from moving, but it was nothing he’d ever fully been able to master. “I mean, besides... you know what, dumb question probably.”

“What can I do for you?”

#threads: tobias; #tobias x august; #txa: 01; #btw tobi is a raMBLER

[havokistic]

JACOB

Jacob empties the rest of the eggs into a separate dish and puts the pan in the sink. He has his back turned to his family and for a moment, he just listens to what his brother has to say. That he can go to the store later and maybe their mother can go with him. The immediate reaction he has is a small exhale of breath, like a weight has been lifted from where it had been sitting on his chest. It’s followed by a thought that he should feel guilty about that. That this was the woman who birthed him and taking care of her just came with the territory. 

Those bitter feelings of resentment come rushing in without his approval and he has to busy himself closing up the dish with a plate and sticking the leftover eggs into the fridge to be eaten later. He doesn’t want the thoughts, doesn’t welcome them, yet they come at him constantly. It’s not her fault, nor is it Tobias’s. It’s no one’s fault that things are the way they are except for possibly one person and that person wasn’t in this world anymore. 

Though their shadow sure fucking was. 

He hears his brother move and turns to watch him pull a mug down from the cupboard. At the offer, Jacob just shakes his head, a silent indicator of no thanks before he turns back to the table to sit down. It’s not anything out of the ordinary for him, the nonverbal way he communicated, the silent way he composed himself. It’s who he’d grown into over the years and if he’s more aware of it today, he thinks it’s simply because he’s feeling hungover from the night before. 

Sitting at the kitchen table, he picks up a fork and starts to push around the eggs on his own plate, tipping his head to look over at their mom as Tobias finishes getting his coffee. She was watching her eldest son with a smile on her face. 

The sudden need to get out of the house was almost overwhelming. Too much time spent in his room, too much time trying to hold things together. He doesn’t take a bite of his eggs, doesn’t even dig into them, but he’s turning to watch his brother finish up too. While there’s a roiling sea of emotion beneath the surface, his voice is as nonchalant and calm as it ever is, that same quiet detachment from what he’s feeling to what he displays that’s always present in his demeanor. 

“I want to go out tonight,” he tells Tobias flatly. “You going to be around tonight?” 

A shake of his head is the only answer Jacob gives him, and Tobias had to remind himself it wasn’t anything personal. That was just how the youngest Howell was, how he’d been for years. As much as he could talk sometimes was as little as his brother did, the differences between them too stark and obvious when they were sat in the same room together.

But then, Tobias hadn’t been the one to walk in and find their dad swinging from a rope.

It had probably broken all of them. It felt like a cruel thing to think, but he wondered some days if the man still would’ve done if he’d known just how many pieces he’d leave his family in. If he’d known Jacob would’ve been the one to find him.

The question shouldn’t concern him as much as it does, freezing his hands for a split second before Tobias can get them to move again. Jacob doesn’t ask for much. He deserves a lot more than that, and Tobias can’t help that persistent feeling of guilt and regret just how much he’s let his little brother down on that front.

Still, Tobias doesn’t answer right away, as if pouring himself a cup of coffee really demanded that much of his attention. Maybe the answer should’ve been easy, but he can’t help that quick surge of anxiety. Most of the time he couldn’t say what was going on in his brother’s head, who his friends were, what he did with his time when he wasn’t watching their mother. It made him more nervous than he liked, too aware that their parents had worse traits to pass on to them than the color of their eyes.

Dad had killed himself. It was a good day when their mother could remember their names. It didn’t paint a bright future for either of them, and his brother’s sullen nature left him with too many nightmares that one day Tobias would walk through the door and find the youngest Howell with a rope around his neck.

It’s an effort to swallow it down, because he hadn’t given him any reason to think that as loudly as he does. A sip of coffee to help wash it down before he manages something, even if it’s just a question of his own. “Where are you going?” His lower back settles against the edge of the counter, gaze settling on what was left of their family. “Got a hot date?”

#threads: tobias; #tobias x jacob; #txj: 01;

[havokistic]

BECKETT

Beckett snorts at the comment. It’s an offhanded statement that shouldn’t bring with it as much baggage as it does. It’s probably closer to the truth than he cares to admit, but at the same time it feels like an insult to his late father to think that he’s trapped in a nightmare because of the man. That the man’s sickness, his life’s work and even his death had that effect on his son. A man’s legacy shouldn’t be the imprisonment of his offspring. 

“Nah, not enough clowns to be a nightmare,” he says just as nonchalantly as she’d made the statement in the first place. He glances away from her for a moment, nodding to another patron down the bar and he starts making the man’s drink, because he knows his customers habits better than anything else in his life. 

As he moves to place the drink in front of the man, he glances back over at her, because she’s making more jokes at him about her voicemail. He hadn’t really expected a straight answer. Hadn’t expected her to deny it or even take anything of it seriously. There was a fine line here that he didn’t know how closely he was walking, because while he wanted to tell her that it was a fucking trash move to not answer his calls, he knew the moment he got serious about it would probably be the moment she got up and left. 

He knew the only thing keeping her in that seat right now was the vodka. 

And it was a harder thing to process than he cared to admit. To wonder, or presumably know, that he meant so little to someone who meant so much to him. There’d been a connection there. The first one he’d had in a long time, maybe since he’d moved here in the first place. Leave it to him to choose to connect with someone who didn’t share the sentiment.

Maybe that was too harsh of a thought. She was here after all. When there was a perfectly good, and probably much better, bar just across town. 

“That’s rich,” he tells her. Moving back over to stand in front of her, he leans against the bar and crosses his arms, trying to look like it didn’t matter to him at all. “It’s okay if you don’t want shit to do with me sometimes,” he tells her, the smile on his face and the relaxed posture juxtaposing the words. “Just fucking let me know. I at least deserve that, huh?” 

He doesn’t answer her with any more sincerity than she said the words in the first place, and part of her is grateful for that. For a moment she relaxes, tension easing from her shoulders. A smile settling on her lips as she watches him move down the bar. “Damn. There goes your birthday surprise.”

Then the moment’s gone.

He smiles, but it’s not a joke, and it leaves her quieter than she likes. Fingers still toying with that plastic sword, the taste of cherries and vodka on her tongue. Eyes anywhere else they can go, but they only make it as far as the glass, the hard countertop beneath it. He might deserve an apology, but there’s no way that’s making it past her lips. An explanation, but the truth settles unpleasantly in her stomach, the sickening awareness that it’s not him she doesn’t want shit to do with. Just herself.

“Noel...” His name, leaves her on a breath, but she still can’t manage much else. It would be easiest to be cruel to him, to make a joke, tell him that’s nothing she can promise. If he doesn’t like it he should find someone better, someone easier. And she hates that silent fear that if she tells him as much, then maybe he will. Just a glance at him assures that it wouldn’t be hard, and that just leaves her frustrated with how much she hates the thought.

He’s the only one in this town that makes her feel anything like good. Which meant it was going to be that much worse when it all fell apart.

But if it’d be easier to just keep pushing and see when he breaks, she’s too tired to risk it tonight. Not when there’s a hope she won’t have go to back to her own place when she’d rather go to his. She doesn’t give him much. It’s a subtle break, a moment where she gives a slight nod of her head. “Yeah. Alright.” Her teeth rip at the inside of her mouth before she tries to pull it back together, pretend that it’s all just fun and games. “Safe word’s Beetlejuice.”

She tips back another mouthful of her drink before she can even look at him again. Wishing that vodka in her stomach would work a little bit faster to strip every awful emotion that put her here in the first place. “Are you too mad to take me home tonight?"

#threads: faith; #faith x beckett; #fxb: 01;

[havokistic]

JACOB

Tobias and their mother greet each other and he supposes he should be thankful that she didn’t think it was some stranger coming into their house. That she still recognized her own son when he walked through the door. It’s hard for there not to be a bitterness in the thoughts, but he can’t tell what he’s bitter towards. It’s wrong to be bitter towards their mother, because she can’t help it. It’s the disease eating away at her memories. Maybe he’s bitter towards that, but it seems a stupid thing to be bitter towards because it’s an intangible thing that he can’t take his anger out on. And he doesn’t even process the idea that Tobias is in anyway involved in those bitter emotions he’s feeling.

In the end, he thinks it’s too exhausting to be bitter towards anything. Not when he’s already feeling drained with the day and it’s only just started. There’s a craving that sneaks up on him. A wish for the end of the day to come where he can curl up in his room, smoke a bit and take the edge off of the constant battle he’s having with his own mind. He wants things to just be…quiet, for a little while. Okay, for a long while. And those thoughts start spiraling almost instantly. 

Until his brother reaches out to ruffle his hair. 

It’s an involuntary thing to wrinkle his nose and move his head away from the hand, but it’s a gesture that grounds him again in the reality of the moment instead of his dark thoughts. He reaches for a plate even as his brother is already taking off his coat. 

“Eggs. Toast,” he says simply, pointing out both entrees as he starts serving his brother up a plate. “No milk, we’re out,” he tells him as a quiet reminder that if Tobias makes it to the store before they do, he should pick some up. 

“Did you check the fridge? I’m certain we just bought some.” It’s his mother’s response and Jacob’s quiet for a moment. They hadn’t been to the store in over a week and he’d spent the last fifteen minutes making breakfast without it. He knows better. He knows not to call her on it or argue. 

He finishes scooping eggs onto his brother’s plate. “I’ll look again,” he says simply, with no intention of actually doing so. 

“That’ll do.” He offers his brother a bright, grateful smile for the offer, whether or not it’s returned. Whatever cracks are there, whatever aches and pains accompany standing in this house with the fractured people that make up his family, it’s always seemed important to him to appear stronger than he is, at least for them, They’re all he really has left. And he knows there’s some open wound that never quite healed right after their father, just as aware that it’s the kind of illness that runs in the family.

It makes him worry too much about Jacob, about the pressures left on his shoulders, and it doesn’t ease when he answers their mother about the milk.

It’s a small thing, but most of them are. Moments like this where those details slip through the cracks. When the last time they went to the store was, what day of the week they were on. Tobias has to work to keep his expression as neutral as possible, ignore the quiet sting that always follows those reminders of what will eventually follow. Milk doesn’t matter. She still knows who her sons are. She’s dressed and eating breakfast with them and he has to remind himself to be grateful for those little things.

“That’s fine. I can go to the store later. Maybe you can come too, Ma.” He forces a smile onto his lips for both of them, hands smoothing his coat across the back of the chair. He doesn’t look at his brother when he says it, but he can’t pretend it’s not just to take the strain off him for an afternoon.

Still, it’s easier after he turns his back and he can stop pretending.. She can’t go to the store by herself. That’s just understood, and there’s that distant and familiar weight of guilt in his stomach that so much of it falls to his younger brother.

He’d had plans. It’s not the first time he’s been reminded of that in the last few days, not with Farrah showing back up, but if his dreams had all gone up in flames he’d thought Jacob would be able to follow his own by now. These days he can’t even say what they are, and he swallows down just how hard it is to be in his family home before he reaches for the cupboard. Helping himself to the coffee like he still lives here, because he remembers it being home even if it hasn’t felt that way in a while. .

“Jake, you want any?” 

#threads: tobias; #tobias x jacob; #txj: 01;

[havokistic]

BECKETT

“Extra cherries? You’re gonna fucking ruin me,” he grumbled, though the playful tone was still evident in his voice. It was like this, most days. A playful banter here, a step over the line there. He was still trying to figure out just where that line was. Just what ended up making her run away from him. 

It’d be easier if he didn’t care. Easier if he’d had enough concern for his own self-preservation to realize that he should probably cut ties and let her get what she wanted when she ran off. To be left the hell alone. But even that first time, when she’d not answered his phone calls and had disappeared for a week or so, he couldn’t quite bring himself to not care. Couldn’t deny that when the times were good, even if they didn’t last, it at least gave him something. 

Hell, wasn’t that most of his life? He’d thought he’d make a career in the army until that had been taken away from him. Every time he thought he’d find a new job that could sustain him, something would get in the way of it, usually his wrap sheet. No one wanted an ex-convict who could fly off the rails any moment – no matter how he tried to explain that that wasn’t the case. Even coming home to his father, he’d thought the man would recover and they’d move on with their lives and he’d be around the help Beckett get back on his feet. 

But he was gone too, now. 

The thoughts are sobering, but he’s able to keep that easy smile on his face like always. He pours her a drink and, just for her, puts a couple extra cherries on a little plastic sword before popping it in the drink and sliding it over to her. 

The question has him glancing up at her. “Living the dream,” he says and for just about anyone, the words might be convincing. He pauses, though, and looks her over. “Might want to check your voicemail. Think it might be full.” It’s a small dig, because they both know that’s not why she hadn’t returned his calls. 

“You know nightmares are dreams too.” She says it without any real inflection, like it might as well have been a comment on the weather. She didn’t want to make any real assumptions about what ‘the dream’ meant to the man in front of her. Chances were, he was just as trapped as the rest of them. Chained to this bar because it was what he had left, and the fact that she knew that already felt like more than she was supposed to.

It was all too honest a statement for her. She saw a dead man’s face in her dreams, twisted into something ugly and wretched and inhuman. Gleaming back at her through blackened eyes, and it felt like no matter how hard she scrubbed, she could still feel them watching her.

Easier to ignore it now, when she can pretend this is all she is. Face brightening just at the sight of a drink being slid across the counter towards her, and she’s quick to reach for it. Picking up the cherries first so she can take a long sip from her drink before tugging one off with her teeth. The cool liquor makes the next comment a little bit easier to take, settling in her stomach as her expression goes blank.

It isn’t fair. She knows that, even as she chooses to ignore it. Denying any sensation of shame or guilt, because she already has enough reasons to drink.

“Probably. Haven’t checked it in like... six years.” Her gaze lifts to meet his when she says it. If it’s probably true, they both know it’s not why she didn’t get back to him. She knows how many calls she’d missed, how many times she’d purposely turned her phone over just so she wasn’t tempted to answer. Like ignoring him could remind them both that she didn’t owe him a thing. It was doing him a favor. There wasn’t any piece of her that wasn’t rotten somehow. 

Her tone t urns playful in the next moment, tugging another cherry off the sword before popping it in her mouth. “Why? Did you need something? Did I miss a booty call?”

#threads: faith; #faith x beckett; #fxb: 01;