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inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 4 years

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72 Hours In Montreal [Part I]

A/N: Many moons ago, the incomparably lovely @im-an-adult-ish pitched a Montreal concert fic idea (jokingly, I think), and quite a few of my followers fell in love with it. They were even kind enough to vote on which Queen member should be the love interest, and there was a clear winner: John!

I couldn’t get the idea out of my head, and at last, here is the first of three chapters of this new mini-fic. I’m going to tag some of my past readers, but I WILL NOT TAG YOU AGAIN unless you ask me to. Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy. 💜

Series Summary: John Deacon is a rock star at a crossroads. Y/N is a world-weary employee at a Yankee Candle shop. They’ll only ever have three short days in Montreal together...or will they??

Chapter Warnings: Language, sexual content (not graphic).

Word Count: 6.8k.

Other Chapters (And All My Writing) Available: HERE

Taglist: @queen-turtle-boiii @bramblesforbreakfast @culturefiendtrashqueen @imnotvibingveryguccimrstark @escabell @im-an-adult-ish @queenlover05 @someforeigntragedy @imtheinvisiblequeen @seven-seas-of-ham-on-rhyee @deacyblues @tensecondvacation @brianssixpence @some-major-ishues @haileymorelikestupid @youngpastafanmug @simonedk @rhapsodyrecs @joemazzmatazz @seven-seas-of-ham-on-rhyee @namelesslosers @inthegardensofourminds @sleepretreat @hardyshoe @sevenseasofcats @jennyggggrrr @madeinheavxn @whatgoeson-itslate @herewegoagainniall @anotheronewritesthedust1 @pomjompish @allauraleigh @bluutac @johndeaconshands

The obnoxious British men are still laughing. The one with the mustache, suspenders, and illogically tight red leather pants is standing on the tiptoes of his equally red Adidas shoes to paw candles off the top shelf so he can sniff them. The blond one has no less than eight jars balanced precariously in his wiry arms. Journey’s Don’t Stop Believing is billowing through the shop speakers.

“Oh my god, he’s gonna break something,” you moan in a whisper, covering your eyes but peeking through your fingers. Your apron is suddenly too tight around your waist; your cheeks are roaring with blood as you envision the inevitable confrontation: Sir, unfortunately you ruined some of our giant tacky overpriced candles and so now you have to pay for them. So sorry. Paper or plastic? We take Mastercard.

“Who?” Kevin asks. He’s holding a broom in one pudgy, pinkish hand and a dustpan in the other. He has surrendered.

“That one. Suspenders and moustache guy. Red shoes guy. Dorothy without Toto.”

Kevin cracks a smile. “That is frighteningly accurate. He is rather whimsical, isn’t he? Maybe he’ll click his heels and disappear back to London or wherever.”

“We aren’t in Kansas anymore,” you mutter in commiseration. Actually, to be perfectly literal, you’ve never been to Kansas in your life.

“Wait, I think I might have met that guy before somewhere.” Kevin squints with great concentration. “He looks oddly familiar…”

“Hm.” You check your eyeliner wings in your reflection in the cash register screen. From what you can tell, they’re every bit as tragically asymmetrical as you remembered. Spectacular.

“Staring won’t make it better,” Kevin notes, very unhelpfully.

“I know,” you reply, miserable, toying with your bangs so you can hide behind them.

“How does that even happen? The right one is practically a 90-degree angle. The left one looks like you drew it on with a Sharpie.”

You groan. “I’ll try to scrub them off during my break.”

“If you’re not too busy helping me sweep glass off the floor, sure,” Kevin says. “I told you, I took an electrical engineering class as an elective once. I could totally take a look at your bathroom.”

“I thought you said you failed that class.”

“No, I said I got a D in that class. Ds aren’t failing.”

“Well now you’ve convinced me.” You scrutinize your reflection again, frowning. You rent a rather dilapidated one-bedroom apartment above a bakery just a few blocks from the Yankee Candle shop. The apartment always smells like powdered sugar and baking bread, which you like. What you don’t like is everything else about it: the peeling paint, the low water pressure, the windows that you can’t wrestle open, the occasional mice, the shoddy electrical wiring. On any given day, there’s an approximately 27% chance that the bathroom light won’t turn on when you flip the switch. This morning you had been on the losing side of those odds, and with the only mirror in the apartment being the one mounted over the sink—and the overcast November skies outside offering painfully little natural light—you had haphazardly guesstimated your way through your makeup routine before dashing off to work. Your guesstimation skills, apparently, are not all that great.

“If he’s The Wizard of Oz...” Kevin points his broom handle from the snickering moustached man to the gangly, poodle-haired one who has been trying to decide between two candles—Christmas Cookie and Cinnamon Stick—for twelve uninterrupted minutes. He’s wearing a parka spotted with patches: a NASA emblem, a soaring rocket, a smiling green extraterrestrial face, Saturn and its rings. “That guy’s gotta be Star Wars.”

“Or Alien,” you suggest, clutching your chest and pretending to die melodramatically.

Kevin laughs. “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

“Close Encounters of The Third Kind.”

“What about that one?” Kevin nods to the guy who has large blue eyes and bleach-blond, fried tufts of hair sticking out in every direction and a grin that is simultaneously childish and foxlike. Under Pressure comes on the shop speakers, and the British men all start cheering and high-fiving each other, leaving their candles momentarily tucked under their arms or quivering precariously on the edges of wooden display tables. You are entirely mystified. “God, he’s gorgeous.”

“Bye Bye Birdie,” you decide. “Beautiful. Charming. Beloved by all. Perhaps a little dangerous. I can picture teenage girls sobbing themselves to sleep as he gallantly marches off to war.”

“You think he’s gay?” Kevin asks hopefully.

“I don’t think he’s dressed well enough for that.” The blond man is wearing a shapeless, polka-dotted sweater that has ‘NIVEA’ spelled across the front, for reasons that are difficult to fathom.

Kevin sighs, crestfallen. He suffered a nasty breakup with his boyfriend Patrick two weeks ago, and is enthusiastically on the hunt for a rebound to distract him. “You’re probably right. Okay, last but not least.” Kevin aims his broom handle at the fourth and final British stranger. “What shall we call him?”

You consider the man who has wandered away from the others. He’s wearing Levi’s, a black bomber jacket, aviator sunglasses, a mop of unwrangled auburn hair, thoughtful lines that break around the corners of his hidden eyes. He is browsing unhurriedly, perhaps even distractedly, through the fruit-scented candles. He picks up a jar of Macintosh Apple, sniffs a few times, then sets it back down precisely where he found it. He even spins the jar so it’s label-side-facing-outwards again. You warm to him immediately.

“One of the James Bond movies?” Kevin offers. “He seems…enigmatic somehow. Esoteric. Yet still clearly leading man material.”

“Casablanca,” you say, not tearing your gaze from the stranger. “I can imagine him waving off some old flame on a foggy, night-draped airport runway, breaking hearts with sparse words of wisdom. Can’t you?”

“Oh, that’s exactly right!” Kevin sighs again, dreamily, yearningly. And whether he’s yearning for his ex-boyfriend Patrick or Bye Bye Birdie a.k.a. NIVEA-sweater man or passion or sex or love or maybe just the ineffable high that accompanies the beginnings of things, you couldn’t say.

You peer at your reflection in the cash register screen once again, feeling more self-conscious than ever. “Maybe if I—”

“Freddie!” Star Wars cries, and you whirl just in time to see The Wizard of Oz, whizzing around and giggling and preoccupied with teasing NIVEA-sweater man, stumble into the six-foot-tall tower of Christmas Tree-scented candles and send countless jars crashing to the tile floor.

“I knew it!” you unleash in a rush of misery and exasperation, the biting threat of tears in your eyes and the back of your throat. And of course, it isn’t just about the mess on the floor, it isn’t just about having to tell your manager and hoping to God he doesn’t fire you. It’s about your derelict apartment, it’s about your fucked up eyeliner, it’s about everything that’s happened in the past eighteen months; it’s about the never-ending feelings of helplessness and inertia and predestined ruin, it’s about not being able to get fifteen meters down the street before life throws up another red light, another jagged sinkhole gaping like ravenous jaws. And none of that is these ridiculous British men’s fault; yet still, in that moment the fury you feel towards them is overwhelming.

“Jesus christ,” Kevin mumbles, stepping out from behind the counter to survey the damage, his hands still clutching the broom and dustbin.

“You couldn’t just mosey around and ask which candles are on sale and maybe sniff one or two like a normal person?!” you explode. “You had to come in here acting like goddamn animals and destroy like a third of our inventory?!”

“I’m so sorry,” The Wizard of Oz sputters, looking at you and Kevin with wide, profusely apologetic dark eyes. Star Wars and NIVEA-sweater man are helping him to his feet, albeit with very spirited chidings. Kevin is grudgingly asking if he’s alright. Casablanca is already trying to sort through which candles are broken and putting those that survived aside. And when he casts furtive glances from behind his aviator sunglasses, they’re directed not at Kevin or The Wizard of Oz but at you.

“Freddie, bloody hell,” NIVEA-sweater man laments.

“I’ll pay for them all,” The Wizard of Oz tells you. “I’m so, so, so terribly sorry, you’re absolutely right to be cross with me, and I’ll pay for everything. Here, let me get my wallet…” He digs around in the pockets of his preposterously tight red leather pants.

“Uh…sir…” Kevin begins uncertainly, not wanting to break the bad news.

“It’s going to be hundreds of dollars,” you inform The Wizard of Oz. “Maybe over a thousand. You’re really going to pay that? Or are you just going to wait until we start sweeping up and then sprint out the front door the first chance you get?”

“Hey,” Kevin warns you quietly. He wants you to keep this job probably even more than you do. You are, by his own admission, far and away his favorite coworker.

“No, no, darling, please, let her scold me, I deserve it.” The Wizard of Oz at last locates his wallet. He sashays to the counter, brushing nuggets of glittering glass off his clothes, and counts out two thousand Canadian dollars in hundreds. “Will that do? You can keep the change as compensation for the inconvenience. And we’ll help clean up as well, has anyone got an extra broom?”

As you stare down at the money, shocked into speechlessness, three hulking men dressed in black come barreling into the shop.

“Lord in heaven, Freddie, what happened?!” one asks. He has a thick beard and an Irish accent and closely resembles a grizzly bear.

“I made a complete ass out of myself and am now trying to win the affections of this marvelous creature,” The Wizard of Oz replies, flourishing a hand towards you. “Is it working, dear?”

“Kind of,” you admit, still stunned.

“Oh my god.” The broom tumbles out of Kevin’s grasp and clatters on the floor. He points at The Wizard of Oz. “I know where I’ve seen you before. You…you…you’re Freddie Mercury, right?”

In reply, The Wizard of Oz only flashes an enormous, toothy, dazzling grin.

“Oh my god,” Kevin says again, a starry, awed smile rippling across his round face.

“Please don’t make his ego any bigger,” Star Wars pleads.

“And you’re Brian May!” Kevin replies. “And you’re…” He turns to NIVEA-sweater man, snapping his fingers, trying to remember. “Robbie…no, Ronnie…uh…Ricky…?”

“Roger Taylor.” But it comes out like ‘Rogah Taylah.’ NIVEA-sweater man extends a hand for Kevin to shake, not the least bit offended. “It’s a pleasure. Sorry about the candles.”

“No problem, sir!” Kevin squeaks as he takes Roger’s hand, beaming. The men in black—the band’s security, you’ve gathered—have descended upon the crime scene, confiscated Kevin’s broom and dustbin, and are rapidly clearing glass and chunks of candlewax from the floor and discarding the mess in a trash bin that usually collects only chewed gum and unwanted receipts.

“So I guess I probably shouldn’t have yelled at you,” you tell Freddie Mercury guiltily, all the venom in your voice evaporated. You’re no Queen superfan, true, but everyone knows the words to Bohemian Rhapsody and We Will Rock You and We Are The Champions. And Another One Bites The Dust. And Killer Queen. And Crazy Little Thing Called Love. And Somebody To Love. Your thoughts are suddenly a racing, indecipherable blur. Your knees are boneless. You’ve never met a celebrity before. Well, not unless you count professional hockey players, which you definitely don’t.

“No, you absolutely should have,” Freddie retorts. “I was dreadfully discourteous. I’m positively mortified about it. I should be punished severely. Have you got anything behind the counter to whip me with? A riding crop, perhaps?”

You laugh, shaking your head. “Not that I know of. I’m sorry I called you an animal.”

“I’m sorry about the candles. There, now we’re even. Wait, not quite yet.” He calls over to Kevin: “Darling, how would you and your friend like front row seats at our show tonight?”

The squeal that bursts out of Kevin is not human.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Freddie Mercury says, very pleased.

“This is really too generous of you,” you protest, although your heart isn’t in it; Kevin might legitimately strangle you if you screw this up, and you’re finding that you want to see Queen in concert too. It’s something to interrupt the powerless, unrelenting monotony; it’s like something that might happen in a movie or a dream.

“Nonsense!” Freddie announces cheerfully. Star Wars and NIVEA-sweater man—or, rather, Brian and Roger—are chatting with the security guys and nodding along as the bearlike Irishman reviews the day’s itinerary.

You peer over at Casablanca. Now that the floor is mostly clear, he’s migrating towards you and Freddie. You glance apprehensively down at your reflection. “Goddammit,” you mutter, manipulating your bangs again, wishing you could disappear. “I meet a rock star for the first time ever and I look like this.”

“It’s not that bad,” Kevin says, obviously lying.

“I like it,” Freddie tells you, propping his elbows on the counter and resting his chin on his knuckles. “It’s very goth raccoon chic.”

“My bathroom light wouldn’t turn on this morning and I was late for work and I guesstimated and that was clearly a poor decision.” Poor decisions are my expertise, you think instinctively, and feel a tug of something you don’t quite have the words for. Shame, grief, disappointment, a raw sting like a flame beneath your palm, a dread like a child who’s lost their mother’s hand.

“I’ve offered to take a look at the wiring!” Kevin exclaims. “I told you, a D is passing!”

“Kev, babe,” you reply. “I really, truly appreciate your enthusiasm, but you’ll probably just make it worse. And then my landlord will hate me and keep my security deposit and write me awful references and I’ll have to live in an endless string of ancient, hideous apartments until I die.”

“It’s an electrical problem?” Casablanca asks, pushing his aviator sunglasses up into his unruly hair. His unveiled eyes are a blueish grey—they remind you of one of the candles, maybe Beach Walk or Bahama Breeze—and very direct. He stares at you and you stare back, and at some point you realize that everyone is waiting for you to answer.

“Oh, uh, yeah, I guess so. Sometimes nothing happens when I flip the switch. That’s the extent of my handyman knowledge, unfortunately.”

Casablanca nods. “I could take a look, if you like.”

Not Beach Walk. Not Bahama Breeze. Warm Luxe Cashmere, maybe. “Now that really is too generous. I couldn’t possibly put a rock star to work on my terrible apartment.”

“John’s got a degree in electrical engineering, that’s right in his wheelhouse,” Brian counters.

“Yes,” Roger says, grinning, teasing in a way that has absolutely no malice in it. “He’s more of an engineer than a rock star anyway, isn’t he?”

“Seriously?” Casablanca—John, you mentally correct yourself—doesn’t seem much like an electrical engineer. But Roger’s right: he doesn’t really seem like a rock star, either. What John seems like is steady and abiding and perceptive, attentive, unflinching. He studies you like some people study paintings, like you once studied paintings; not in a passing-by-in-a-crowded-hallway type way but in a patient way, a methodical way, with the quiet that comes from knowing that vision in the frame is older than you will ever be and will still be hanging on that wall when you’re bones in a box somewhere.

Freddie lights a cigarette and puffs on it decadently. Smoking definitely isn’t allowed inside the Yankee Candle shop, but you aren’t about to snap at Freddie Mercury for the second time today. “Oh, let him tinker around in your flat, darling. It’ll make his day.”

“Is it far?” John asks you.

“No, really, Casa…uh, I mean, John, I appreciate the offer more than I could possibly express but I—”

“It’s just a few blocks north,” Kevin says, and tosses you a wily smile.

“How convenient!” Freddie trills. “When does your shift end, dear?”

“Not until 5:30.”

“She can take a long lunch break.” Another smile from Kevin. “Honestly, there’s not much to do around here now that the Great Candle Massacre of 1981 has been remediated.”

“Splendid!” Freddie says, radiant.

You shake your head, very slowly. “This is the weirdest day of my life.”

“Then you clearly haven’t lived enough,” Freddie quips.

“Fred!” Roger presses. “Are we going to the bookstore down the street or not? That was the whole deal, we suffer through your candles, you suffer through our books.”

“You didn’t seem to be suffering,” Brian says.

“Of course I’m suffering. That cashier over there almost murdered me,” Roger slings back.

Freddie sighs and rolls his large, dark, expressive eyes. “Yes, darling, of course, don’t give yourself an aneurism. We’ll go to the bookstore, John can rendezvous with us later.” Now he turns to you. “We’ll send a car to your flat at 7 to pick you and Kevin up for the show tonight. Don’t let John leave without knowing your address. Wear something deliciously opulent. Lots of sparkle. Maybe furs.”

“I make eight dollars an hour,” you tell him.

“Or you could just wear nothing.”

“Sparkle and furs it is.”

Freddie chuckles and turns to the men in black. “Chubby, my dear?”

The towering bearlike Irishman replies: “Yeah, I’ll go with John. Don’t wreck anything else while I’m gone. Don’t get yourselves deported before the show. EMI will have your heads on spikes.”

Freddie pretends to be scandalized. “Causing destruction? We would never.” He saunters towards the shop door, jingling the bells as he swings it open, and waves like royalty. “See you tonight, darlings!”

“Bye!” Kevin shouts after him. And then, after Freddie, Roger, Brian, and the two non-bearlike men in black have departed: “Oh my god I just met Freddie Mercury and he’s amazing and he knows I exist and he spoke to me and tonight he’s sending a car to take me to a concert and I’m going to have front row seats and what if he invites me to have a drink afterwards oh my god.”

John, evidently unaffected, prompts you: “So your place is just a few blocks away?”

“Yeah. Just let me get my coat…”

The man in black—Chubby, as Freddie had introduced him—fetches your coat off the rack by the door and holds it up so you can slip inside it. No one has ever done that for you before.

“…Thanks…?” You button your coat, feeling a little like royalty yourself at the moment.

John pulls open the door, the tiny metal bells jangling, and gestures out into the streets of downtown Montreal. He’s wearing his aviator sunglasses again; the November wind gusts through his hair. You catch threadbare ghosts of cigarette smoke and cologne that the breeze lifts from his skin like pages of a book. And he smiles, just barely. “After you.”

You walk north together along the path of the sidewalk with your hands in your pockets, your breath fog in the cold, weaving through the bustling crowds of tourists and holiday shoppers, Chubby trailing not far behind and displaying his talent for keeping watch while not letting on that he is. To even your own horror, you can’t seem to shut up.

“John, this is so kind of you, this is completely unnecessary, you really shouldn’t feel like you owe me anything because Freddie already paid for the candles twice over and I was totally unprofessional for yelling at customers, even annoying customers, and Kevin and I are already getting a free concert tonight and so—”

“Okay,” John says firmly. “You have to talk about something else now.”

“I can’t talk about anything else. All I can think about is how ridiculous this is.”

“Have you lived in Montreal long?” he asks, very casually, as if you’re strangers in line next to each other at Starbucks.

“My whole life.” Minus a little over three years, but you don’t need to get into that. “My parents live over in Verdun, right on the St. Lawrence River.

“Sounds scenic.”

“It certainly is.” You’re trying not to look at John, because every time you do it’s hard to stop. You look at the cars rolling by instead. “This is super embarrassing, and I don’t mean to offend you, but what exactly do you do in Queen?”

He’s not offended; he thinks it’s hilarious. “I’m the bassist.”

“Oh, that makes sense.”

“Does it?”

“Yeah, bassists are quiet and reliable or whatever. Bassists don’t terrorize Yankee Candle employees.”

“You’re not a Queen fan?”

“I’m a casual and appreciative listener, but I wouldn’t call myself a fan. I couldn’t pick any of you out of a lineup, clearly. Roger is the drummer, right?”

“Is it that obvious?”

“Drummers are feral, almost universally. Which means Brian must be lead guitar.”

“And what do you think of lead guitarists?”

“Word on the street is that they are brilliant yet micromanaging egomaniacs, but I don’t want to bash your friend or anything.”

John chuckles, like there’s some joke you aren’t in on yet. “No, please, bash away. So you prefer bassists.”

And finally you do look at him, and you regret it immediately; because now you’re caught in the thoughtful crinkles around his eyes and the barely-there stubble of his cheeks and the playful curve of his lips and how the wind ruffles his auburn hair the same way it steals leaves off of slumbering trees. You almost walk right past the bakery. “Oh, wait, we’re here.”

You lead John and Chubby upstairs to your chronically irritating apartment. John removes his sunglasses, inspects your bathroom light switch, then asks if you have a specific kind of screwdriver. You bring him the toolkit that has lived beneath the kitchen sink since before you moved in and he roots around, finds what he’s searching for, and unfastens the light switch plate from the wall.

“Please don’t electrocute yourself,” you fret, as Chubby meanders around in the living room and tries not to intrude. “If you die your groupies will never forgive me.”

“Who says I’ve got groupies?” John replies, amused.

“I just assumed all rock stars do.” Your eyes flick down to his hands as he fidgets with the wiring; and you notice randomly—or, maybe, not all that randomly—that he’s not wearing a ring. You’re still ruminating over that when he returns the light switch plate to the wall, secures each of the four screws with a few deft twists of his wrist, and performs a test flip. The light turns on immediately.

“Mission accomplished,” John says mildly.

“What?! No, no way, no freaking way.” You flip the switch again. The light turns off and on obediently. You try it at least five more times. Perfection. “…How?!”

“Just a few loose wires. No great hardship.” He tucks the screwdriver back into the toolkit.

You gape at him. “That took you…like…two minutes.”

“Aren’t you glad my band wandered into your candle shop and almost demolished the place today?” He rests his hands on his waist; his sturdy, skillful, ringless hands. “Anything else I can fix for you?”

“Definitely not.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

He stares at you. You stare back.

“Stop looking at my fucked up eyeliner.”

John laughs. It’s a delightfully clear, disarming sound. “That’s not what I was doing.”

“I should fix my makeup and go back to work now. And you should probably go help your friends burn down the bookstore or blow up a Starbucks or do whatever else is on your agenda for today.”

“Soundcheck and dinner, actually,” John says. He slides the toolkit back beneath your kitchen sink, meets Chubby by the front door, and pauses there to give you one last lingering, laden gaze. “I’ll see you tonight.”

“In my best furs,” you purr in your most convincing Freddie Mercury impression.

“Or nothing at all,” John suggests levelly. And then he’s gone.

~~~~~~~~~~

It turns out better than you thought it would. Your tan, knee-high suede boots are celebratory without being too uncomfortable. Kevin brings you a faux fur jacket that he stole from Patrick during the breakup. You find a glittery black dress in the back of your closet that you once loved, then couldn’t stand to look at, then forgot existed entirely; but tonight it’s like you’re seeing it with brand new eyes. It fits even better than you remember. In the mirror, you look like a stranger and a hauntingly familiar acquaintance and yourself all at once.

Chubby arrives in a black limousine at precisely 7pm, parks along the curb next to the bakery, and honks the horn twice. You and Kevin dash down the narrow steps and climb into the backseat, finding complimentary cigarettes and bottled water and chilled champagne. As the limo rolls though Montreal under changing traffic lights, Kevin prattles on about the band, their history, their albums, their tours…and John in particular. He tries to tempt you. You resist valiantly…for the first fifteen minutes, anyway.

Finally, you sigh in capitulation. “Okay. Fine. I get it. What do you know about him?”

“I know he’s divorced,” Kevin says, wiggling his eyebrows. “I saw it on the cover of a tabloid a while back. Very contentious, spicy stuff. He’s got like eight kids.”

“He does not have eight kids!”

“Okay, maybe not eight. But he has a lot,” Kevin insists.

You rearrange your hair with deliberate flippantness. “What do I care if he’s divorced?”

Kevin grins. “You know why you care.”

“Stop,” you plead.

“Look, all I’m saying is that he definitely likes you. And you like him. And I haven’t seen you like anybody, ever, in the…wait, let me count…the nine whole months that I’ve known you. When was the last time you even had a boyfriend? When was the last time you got laid? Oh my god, it hasn’t been nine months, has it?! That’s way too long to go without sex. No wonder you’re so serious all the time. It all makes sense now. You poor thing. You’re in dick withdrawal.”

“Assuming that’s my problem—which it isn’t, by the way—if I wanted to get laid there are far easier ways to accomplish that.”

“Sure,” Kevin says. “But you don’t want just any dick. You want British bassist dick. John Deacon dick. Casablanca dick.”

“This friendship is terminated.”

Kevin cackles, pouring himself a glass of champagne that bubbles over the top and spills onto the limo floor. “I’m really glad you’re here with me. I’m glad we can do this together.”

You fill a champagne flute with bottled water and clink your glass against his, smiling. The limo is turning into the parking lot of the Montreal Forum. “Me too.”

~~~~~~~~~~

The backstage room that Chubby escorts you and Kevin to after the show is full of chatter and heavy smoke and roadies and fans and musicians and journalists, trays of hors d'oeuvres, wine and Stella Artois and vodka and tequila and rum, the electric promise of things that will go unmentioned in the morning. There are stacks of stereo speakers in the corner rumbling out Another One Bites The Dust. You and Kevin camp out on a green velvet couch—making small talk with each other to avoid making it with anyone else—until the band arrives.

John is still wearing his concert outfit: blue pants, blue shirt, a black leather jacket that gives him an edge like a knife. He passes out a few polite nods; but Freddie and Roger are undeniably the suns in this room, and the guests their planets. Freddie is soon surrounded by a constellation of followers and whisks Kevin away with him. John, meanwhile, comes straight to where you’re sitting on the couch and stands in front of you with his messy hair and his veil of cologne and his mystery-candle-blue eyes.

“Can I get you anything?” he asks in that calm, measured way that you’ve learned he has. “Rum and Coke? Moscow Mule? Hurricane? I’ve been on a mojito kick recently.”

“I don’t drink.” And you wait for the inevitable awkwardness that usually follows that sentence, when he says why? or seriously? or maybe just oh in wilted disappointment.

Instead, what John says is this: “No problem. Rum minus the Coke?”

You smile up at him. You can’t help yourself. “That would be perfect.”

There are innumerable drinks already poured on a table, dark carbonated liquid trembling in red plastic cups as the bass from the stereo speakers quakes through the crowded, droning, smoke-hazed room. John moves from cup to cup, taking tentative sips before shaking his head and putting them back down on the table. After each attempt, he casts you a rueful smirk before continuing on to the next cup. At last, he finds two unadulterated Cokes and brings them to the couch: one for you, and one for him. He sits beside you with one of his legs crossed over the other, a lit cigarette in his right hand, a red plastic cup of Coke in his left, and his eyes on you in a way that isn’t hungry or arrogant or restless but merely, benignly contemplative. You find yourself thinking of paintings in museums again, you even start to feel a little like one; and you wonder what colors he sees in you, what types of brushstrokes, what signatures scribbled in the corners of the canvas, what shadows painstakingly penciled in to mimic the angles of the sun.

You tell John about growing up in Montreal, about autumn strolls along the St. Lawrence River, about snowfalls and Mont-Royal and Chinatown and the Notre-Dame Basilica, about the exhilarating turmoil of the Summer Olympics in 1976. You tell him about how Kevin is in his last year at Concordia University and works part-time at the Yankee Candle shop for money to invest in his hair gel and travel fund. You tell him so many things he doesn’t notice all the parts you leave out. In return, John tells you about himself; not about John Deacon the bassist of Queen, but about the understated man who likes cars and electronics and the Beatles and tea in the evenings beside a roaring fireplace. And when his arm comes to rest on the back of the green velvet couch, and then across your shoulders, and then around your waist, it doesn’t feel strange at all. You lean into him as you exchange stories and clandestine giggles until you’re nearly in his lap, and that doesn’t feel strange either. And you haven’t had a drop of alcohol—you haven’t in almost a full year, in fact—but you feel a little drunk tonight, because your cheeks are hot and the room is blurry and the world is brimming with a pure, rose-gold, uncomplicated happiness.

The other band members periodically stop by to say hello, clutching their drinks and making stilted pleasantries as you and John smile drowsily up at them, looking nothing like the soberest people in the room. Chubby and the rest of the men in black are simultaneously omnipresent and scarce, which you are beginning to think is a requirement inked into their job description. Kevin, having been fully absorbed into Freddie’s entourage, is beaming and flushed and extremely, blissfully tipsy. And they all watch you and John not with scandalized sideways glances but with warm approval swimming in their gleaming eyes.

“I don’t think I’ve properly thanked you yet,” you tell John when you are alone again. “For improving my dreadful apartment. So thank you. You really didn’t have to do that. I hate that I marred your time in Montreal with unpaid labor.”

He shrugs it off. “I like fixing things. It’s what I’m best at.”

“Besides being an internationally acclaimed rock star, you mean.”

“I’m honestly not so sure I’m cut out for the rock star life.”

“You are, though. I saw you. I watched you all night.”

John just stares at you, and then he leans in even closer, inhaling deeply. You can feel the heat of his breath on your collarbone, your shoulder, your neck; goosebumps spring up across your skin like stars at twilight. “What the hell is that? Perfume? Lotion? Shampoo?”

“It’s probably sugar and baking bread, because I live on top of a bakery.”

“Does Yankee Candle make anything that smells like you?”

You laugh, shaking your head. “They definitely do not.”

“They should,” John murmurs. And with the rough whirlpools of his fingertips he turns your face to his so he can kiss you.

It should be kind of humiliating, right? Making out with some guy you just met on a green couch in front of thirty strangers, your hands getting tangled in each other’s hair, your lips meeting again and again, taunting darts of the tongue and quick painless bites and stifled moans and grasping tugs at clothes that you’re starting to wish weren’t there at all. It should feel embarrassing, you should feel overexposed, here in this land of unfamiliar expectations and accents and faces. But no one seems to be watching too closely. This must be so tame in the world of rock stars, it occurs to you; almost wholesome. And you can’t remember a time you’ve ever felt more at peace.

“There’s a pool table in the next room,” someone says, startling you, and you break away from John to discover Roger perched on the arm of the couch, grinning coyly as he sips his emerald glass bottle of Stella Artois. “I mean…you know. If you’re into that. John’s got all sorts of moves, we played for days at a time at Ridge Farm. You could challenge him to a round or two. Place bets. But be warned…he’s a total pool shark.”

“Is he?” you ask mischievously, clasping the lapel of John’s leather jacket. Even if you freed him, he shows no indication of retreating. He’s raking his knuckles back and forth along the length of your thigh that your little black dress leaves exposed, never venturing above the hem.

Roger winks. “Just thought you might want to know.” Then he hops off the couch and disappears into the crowd again.

John is trying to keep his eyes locked on yours, and no lower. He’s trying to not be even vanishingly forceful. He’s trying not to sway you. But you know exactly what he wants. “Do you…?”

“Show me how to play pool,” you whisper. And you lead him through the shuffling bodies and boisterous, increasingly intoxicated laughter and cumulus clouds of cigarette smoke to the door on the other side of the room.

Beyond the threshold you find a pool table and not much else. It’s terribly unceremonious; it’s absolutely perfect. You can hear Blondie’s Call Me playing back in the packed room where the rest of the band is still reveling, the bass crawling through the walls to radiate in your eardrums, your bones. You lock the door and reach out to flick off the harsh florescent lights, but John stops you. You don’t have to ask him why. He wants to be able to see you. He asks if this is okay—again, wordlessly, with the forthright blue of his eyes—and you nod. And then he kisses you as you drag him in, breathing in his cologne and nicotine, tasting the virgin Coke on his lips that he drank just for you.

John tears off his leather jacket. You toss the faux fur that Kevin lent you to the floor. You climb up onto the pool table, and John follows you. You yank off his shirt, link your suede boots around him as he positions himself between your naked, down-soft thighs. And then John stops.

“Look, I have to be honest,” he says. His hands tremble as they cradle the small of your back, just barely. “I’m newly divorced, and I’m really out of practice, I mean really out of practice, and this is not at all my usual way of doing things, and if I’m total rubbish or only last like thirty seconds or something I just want to apologize in advance and swear that I’ll do absolutely everything I can to make this worth it for you. Because I like you. I really, really like you.”

“I’m a little rusty too,” you confess with a small, sheepish smile. But he doesn’t need to know exactly how rusty you are, or in how many ways, all those layers of blood-hued ruin that spin webs from the skin down to the marrow.

John seems relieved. “Then maybe we’re even.”

You’re not even, you’re nowhere close; but it’s comforting that he thinks you could be.

John kisses you again. His hands find the zipper on the back of your dress, and then the tiny metal clasp of your bra, and then the black lace of your panties…and then everything else as well.

~~~~~~~~~~

Afterwards, you return together to the green velvet couch in the next room, not with bashful swiftness but with your hands entwined, your eyes satiated and calm, your clothes unapologetically rumpled. The partying is winding down. The song pouring through the stereo speakers is In The Air Tonight by Phil Collins. And now you and John don’t talk very much at all; you just sit there with fresh cups of Coke, your head resting against his chest, his left arm draped around you, watching the rest of the universe spin on like a carousel as your feet stay rooted to the earth.

“So you’re the smart one,” you say eventually. “You must be, with an electrical engineering degree.”

“You’d be surprised. We’re rather erudite, as far as rock stars go.” He smiles drowsily down at you. “Freddie’s got a degree in graphic art and design. Roger has one in biology. Brian has the better part of a PhD in astrophysics. He might even go back to finish it one day. He probably will, just to be able to lord it over us.”

“Wow,” you reply, distantly, suddenly feeling very small.

“What did you study?” he asks you.

In truth, you never finished college; but you aren’t going to tell John that. “Something useless.”

John is intrigued, and perhaps a little concerned as well. His brow furrows with grooves like lines of fortune in an open palm.

“I wanted to be a painter,” you explain, smirking at the absurdity. “But the world doesn’t need painters anymore. They have pictures and videos that are just as clear as real life. They don’t need my fantasies or interpretations. They have reality.”

“I think we still need painters,” John disagrees, his calloused fingertips tracing lazy circles around your bare shoulder.

“Really?”

“Yeah. For when reality requires improving.”

You let a few moments of silence tick by. And then you put on your faux fur jacket, finish the last of your Coke, stand and find your balance on the low heels of your boots with exhausted, shaky calves.

John jolts upright, somewhat alarmed. “Hey, you don’t have to—”

“This was great, John. This was the best night I’ve had in a long time. So thank you for that. But I have to go home now.”

“Okay.” He studies you, processing. “Okay, okay. I’ll have Chubby drive you.”

“That’s really not necessary, I can get a cab…”

But John has already waved Chubby over, and the massive man appears serendipitously with an impossible degree of stealth. Kevin finds you, staggering, babbling breathlessly about all of his adventures, showing you where Freddie and Roger and Brian signed his chest with a black Sharpie, repeating the same stories on an identical loop every few minutes. As you leave, you offer John a brief parting wave; and he returns it, like a reflection in a mirror, but he’s wearing a pensive frown and eyes dark with thought. Then again, maybe you are too.

Chubby leads you and Kevin outside to the waiting limousine. You slip into the backseat, ply Kevin with bottled water, open the sunroof so moonlight and cold, reviving November air can flood in like a river.

Kevin is coming down now from the high of the champagne and the concert and the carousing with Freddie Mercury. He blinks, soaking you in, really seeing you for the first time in hours. “Wow, you had a good night with Casablanca. You had a really good night.”

“Yeah,” you reply softly, resting your head against the window and watching the stars and streetlights pass by above like seasons. “And it will never happen again.”

#queen fic #john deacon fic #fic series #72 hours in montreal

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yourdeepestfathoms · 4 years

Text

The Crucible (part one)

[UK Tour]

not to be confused with the play The Crucible...this is yet another Carrie AU because i still have ideas, but i swear everything is wrote differently! and Kitty is the good guy (Sue) because Jodie!Howard would NEVER. okay, well, she’s a little mean at first, but she gets better!! also there is Katanna, which kills me to write, but i love imagining Anna as Tommy. and Jane is insane! so...enjoy!

oh also Hans Holbein is the principal lol

Word count: 7380

TW: The r-word is said once, blood, bullying

----------------

-Hail of Stones-

“What can you tell me about Joan Seymour?”

Eighteen year old Katherine Howard leaned back in her chair, arms crossed firmly over her chest, eyes set on the detective in front of her. He was a grizzly man named James Mulaney, with wide shoulders, neatly combed brown hair, and hazel eyes. He looked at Katherine like he wanted to open up her brain and read through all her thoughts and memories.

“What do you want to know?”

“Was she a friend of yours?” Mulaney asked.

“Joan didn’t have friends.” Katherine answered without a beat.

Mulaney quirked a brow. “Really? When I was in school, even the losers had birds of a feather.”

Katherine scoffed at his assumptions and gazed down at the doughnut she had been given when she came in for questioning that morning. She scratched at crusted pieces of glaze with her pointer finger; the paint on the fingernail is vibrant pink and peeling. She had chewed off most of her nails during all the funerals that had filled the past two weeks.

“Joan wasn’t a loser,” She said. “She just didn’t belong.”

“And why is that?” Mulaney pressed.

“It’s not rocket science.” Katherine said. “We are talking about Joan Seymour.”

“Maybe she didn’t want to belong.”

“Everybody wants to belong,” Katherine said. Her dark amber eyes flickered as she lifted her head to stare at Mulaney. “Anybody who tells you they don’t is lying.”

------

The early afternoon was glorious. Sunbeams glinted off dewdrops clinging to blades of emerald green grass and the sky was a clear bright blue for once, letting the sun rain down on the high school campus.

And that was exactly why Miss Aragon’s fourth period gym class was inside.

The sound of splashing echoed loudly throughout the indoor pool, the smell of chlorine thick in the air. Girls donned in black or blue or red one piece swimsuits and black swim caps were wrestling and romping in the water as they waited for the ball to be served so they could continue the game of water volleyball. Miss Aragon, clad in a yellow and black tracksuit and her usual shiny silver whistle, watched over them from the sides of the pool, eyes sharp and focused.

“Come on, ladies!” She shouted. “Let’s try to keep it in the air three times, alright?”

Katherine got into a defensive position, eyes narrowed into slits and hands out. Her sharp-tongued, gremlin-like older cousin, Anne Boleyn, got into the same stance at her side and flashed her a smirk before lunging up to hit the ball that flew over the net. Katherine copied her when it came back over, and this process repeated until a girl on the other side missed and the white ball landed in the water with a loud plop.

“Yeah!!” Anne cheered. She and Katherine locked hands and twirled around in the water, giggling. “We are graduating this year, Miss Ar-a-gon!!”

Katherine leaned her head back and saw Miss Aragon chuckling fondly at their antics. She signaled for the girls to get ready and Katherine and Anne parted, ready to get their team another point.

But they didn’t.

Because the ball was hit far and the girl who was supposed to be occupying the back space was standing at the edge of the pool, dry as can be, and staring dumbly at the ball that splashed below her.

All eyes turned to Joan Seymour, the frog amongst swans.

She was an undernourished, stunted mess of a human being. Lanky and gaunt, with a narrow chest, hollow cheeks, and sunken eyes that were so bright ice blue that they seemed to glow in the overhead light. Her limbs were too long for her thin body, while her body was too thin for her long limbs. She was pale, like she rarely ever went outside during the day and bathed in moonlight instead, and wiry platinum, almost white, blonde hair fell around her lean skull. The black swimsuit she wore did not compliment her frame very well, hugging tightly around pudgy thighs and forearms with tufts of brown pubic hair sticking out from the crotch area, and the lack of protection revealed dozens of cuts and bruises in various stages of healed to prying eyes. There was one in particular on her left shoulder that was crusted in bubbles of dried pus and blood; it made Katherine’s nose curl in disgust when she saw it.

Joan was only 15, Year 11 and two grades below Katherine, but Katherine had known her since Primary School. Everyone did. Everyone knew about Ol’ Prayin’ Joan and her crazy mother. And that made her a target for even the lowest of losers. There’s been years worth of teasing and messing around with this girl. School days full of pinching and tripping and knocking books over. Peanut butter smeared in too-light-to-be-natural hair when she was sleeping in Algebra and inappropriate notes slipped into her binders. Scorpions put into her shoes, thumbtacks poised on her chairs, lunches dumped over her head. Dozens of games created to see who could make Joan cry first or who could make Joan get down on her knees and pray to God or who could dunk Joan underwater the most at summer camp. Slurs and rude nicknames were tossed her way, worms were put in her food, and spit was spat on her as she passed by. People laughed when she presented, people begged the teacher to switch partners when they were put into a group with her, people destroyed her work so she would have nothing to turn in when she got to certain classes.

Everyone made fun of Joan Seymour, and if she knew this, she never did anything about it.

Joan lifted her head like an impeded cow and blinked slowly at Miss Aragon, who was frowning pitifully at her. She looked back down at the ball, then the water, and then she took a shuffling step backwards, hugging her arms tightly around herself.

“Do you think she’s retarded?” Maria de Salinas not-quite-whispered to Katherine and her friends. Her golden brown eyes were scrutinizing Joan with great distaste that she didn’t bother hiding on her face. At her side, bleach-haired Bessie Blount giggled softly. Katherine shrugged.

“I bet she is,” Impish Maggie Wyatt said, glancing back at Joan, who was slowly inching further and further away from the edge of the pool. “Isn’t it obvious?”

“Does she never take that necklace off?” Bessie said, staring at the silver cross necklace coiled around Joan’s gangly neck.

“Doubt it,” Maria said.

“I bet she thinks she’ll die if she does,” Maggie tittered. “That God will strike her down if she does such a disgraceful thing!” And then she does a dramatic reenactment of what that would probably look like and the group burst into giggles. Miss Aragon glanced at them, eyebrows furrowed.

“Alright, let’s get Joan Seymour in the game.” Their coach announced, much to everyone’s dismay. But nobody looked more dismayed than Joan, who gave Miss Aragon a miserable, fearful look. Miss Aragon frowned at her again. “Sorry, honey. You can’t sit on the sidelines forever.”

Joan stared nervously down at the water, then glanced one last time up at Aragon. When she must have realized that she wasn’t getting out of this, she put on her swim cap and slowly eased herself into the pool, pulling her arms close to her chest and cringing at the temperature. The other girls watched her impatiently.

“Good,” Miss Aragon said, smiling at Joan proudly. “Joan, serve.”

The ball is tossed to the girl and she goggled at it with wide pale blue eyes. Tentatively, she picked it up and held it as if it were a fragile dragon egg.

“Yeah, Joan!” Anne suddenly cheered. “Go, Joan!”

Katherine and her friends glanced at her and then began to mimic her. Joan blinked at them in delight.

“Come on! Do it! Serve it!” Anne encouraged. “Throw it!”

Joan shook herself out, tossed the ball up, and hit it directly into the back of Katherine’s head.

“OW!!” Katherine yelled. She reached around to rub the back of her head and glowered at Joan as giggling exploded around her. “What the hell?” She snapped her head to her cousin. “Oh, hahaha! It’s so funny, Anne!”

Everyone in the pool was laughing, now. Joan watched them in silence for a moment before giggling softly, too, and smiling apologetically. She looked just like a stupidly oblivious bovine.

“You eat shit.” Anne said to her, throwing the ball to Maria.

Like that, Joan shut up. Her smile contorted into a frown in an instant and her eyes lost the slight glow they had before. She lowered her head and didn’t raise it for the rest of the class as she tried to sink into the background.

Katherine’s team ended up losing the game seven to sixteen because the other side kept hitting the ball to Joan, knowing she wouldn’t be able to hit it back or make it over the net. Everyone kept glaring at her and shooting barbed remarks her way each time she missed, and Aragon did her best to ward them off, but not even their coach could catch every insult hurled her way.

“‘Oh, I can’t serve the ball! I can’t serve the ball!’” Maggie cried woefully in an awful imitation of Joan’s voice. She whacked the top of Joan’s head with her knuckles as she waded by. “Serve the ball, stupid!”

Joan flinched back so hard she nearly submerged herself in the water. She backed against the pool’s rough edge, watching everyone climb out from the ladders like a plaintive calf waiting to be herded into the slaughterhouse. Anne wrinkled her nose at her, while Katherine rolled her eyes. The girl was so pitiful that it was just pathetic.

“Come on, Joan,” Miss Aragon said, peering down at the misfit child. There was something in her voice that gave the impression that she spent a lot of time managing this particular student. “Hit the showers.” She tilted her head at her, noticing creases of affliction on Joan’s face. “Is everything alright?”

“M-my stomach…” Joan whispered so quietly Miss Aragon almost didn’t hear her over the sound of chitchat and splashing water. “It hurts…”

Miss Aragon frowned. “I’m sorry, Joan.” She said. “You can go to the nurse after you get changed? I can write you a pass if you’d like.”

Joan shook her head, then slowly walked over to the ladder and squabbled out of the pool. She was shivering instantly from her lack of body fat, despite it being quite warm inside from all insulation, and awkwardly shuffled her way to the locker room.

Lavender and rose-scented steam billowed throughout the showers. White bars of soap were passed between hands and loud conversations were made over the sound of sputtering water from stall to stall. Wet swimsuits were peeled off and replaced with regular school clothes, jewelry, and expensive shoes. Girls pinched and poked one another playfully, but no one dared to touch the gangly, emaciated girl who stepped inside and looked around dumbly.

Joan passed everyone with a lowered head, not daring to look up as she hobbled her way to the showers. She shifted from foot to foot anxiously, white-knuckling a cream towel against her flat bosom. Prying eyes watched her with cruel interest.

A stall opened up and Joan slipped inside. She shed her tight bathing suit, dropping it onto the tile floor with a soggy blop. She grasped the faucet handle and cranked it until the shower head groaned and shot out a torrent of hot water.

Slicking her hands with white soap, Joan began to tentatively scrub her body clean of chlorine. She rubbed her palms down over her flat stomach, sensitive chest, and around her narrow neck. Her nails raked over her breasts; the nipples were dark and dull and warm. An uncomfortable shiver went down her spine when she scratched them. Mama said touching the body like this was wrong, and she could see why. It hurt to put too much pressure on them, like her breasts may burst like balloons if she pressed too hard.

Joan shook herself out, scattering droplets through the shower. She moved her hands down, caressing her waist and lower stomach, where an odd, uncomfortable pressure has built up. She prodded the area gently and winced when bolts of pain lanced through her. She shifted, hunching her shoulders in, and gritted her teeth until it passed.

But it didn’t. Not exactly. The sensation dulled, but she could still feel it churning in her lower belly. Joan frowned, cupping her hands over her abdomen and taking a few deep breaths. Then, slowly, she started cleaning herself again.

Down her stocky legs, over her knobby knees, and in between her flabby thighs. She shuddered, chewed fingernails brushing across her private region, and pulled her hand back quickly.

And saw that her fingers were red.

Joan stared with wide eyes. Red. Blood. On her fingers. Blood.

She extended her other hand and reached down, scooping out another fingerful, just to make sure…

And there it was. Blood. Even more. It was thick and globby and had clotted chunks in it. The smell was sickly sweet. Joan began to tremble.

Her blood. She was bleeding.

Beads of red bubbled out from pale pink vaginal lips like the early blooming of spring flowers. They squeezed free out of the wrinkled, pruned folds, drooling lazily down quivering thighs. Clouds of crimson billowed through the water when the streams hit the tile and ran into the next stall where, unbeknownst to Joan, Maggie was just finishing drying off.

Maggie noticed the river of bloody water with a jolt and reared back into the far corner of her stall. She wrinkled her nose in distaste and stood up on her tippy toes to peer into the neighboring shower compartment, where she saw Joan trembling, gasping, and staring down at her shaking hands, which were stained with blood.

Click, went the pieces in Maggie’s head, and a wicked smile curled on her lips.

Hopping over the reddened Rubicon, Maggie bounded out of the shower and to the locker room, where Katherine, Anne, and her other friends chatted over their prom plans in their bras and underwear. They paused and turned to Maggie when she skidded to a halt in front of them.

“Guys,” Maggie whispered, “Joan’s Aunt Flo is in town.”

The other girl’s eyes lit up.

“Really?” Katherine asked with great interest.

“Yes!” Maggie answered. “She’s, like, freaking out!”

“Oh my god!” Anne shouted in glee.

“Come on!” Maggie urged them.

In a herd of bras and underwear and towels and bobbing breasts, the entire class bustled into the shower area and surrounded the stall where the blood was coming from. There, they found Joan on her knees, gasping and wheezing and panting. Her weird pale eyes were wide and shiny and she was shaking so bad it looked like she was having a seizure. Clouds of blood ripple around her folded legs. Clots are caught in her bush of brown pubic hair and Bessie made a mock throwing up gesture. Joan looked up at all of them in shocked bewilderment.

“Got your period?” Maria called, peering into the stall. They were all standing up on their toes or on stools to peek into the stall.

Joan blinked rapidly, her breath hitching. She lifted her hands slowly, watching them drip blood, and then raised them to the spectators, making a strangled sound of distress. Katherine and Anne exchange looks.

“Uhhhnnnh?” Joan lowed wretchedly. She was like a confused cow calling for help.

She’s fifteen... Katherine was thinking. Surely she knows...

“Know what this is?” Anne asked, waggling a tampon in the air.

“She thinks it’s lipstick!” Bessie giggled. All of their minds flashed back to that story, when Bessie had told them she had walked in on Joan dabbing the tip of a tampon against her lips like she was applying gloss. Bessie said it had been the stupidest, funniest, but also most pitiful thing she had even seen before.

“Plug it up, bitch!” Anne hurled the tampon at Joan and it struck her in the head before falling into the bloody water accumulating throughout the stall. Joan flinched, but didn’t grab it. She just continued to shiver and hyperventilate and make choked, bovine noises. Frustration boiled in Katherine’s veins.

“It’s you period, you stupid cow!” Katherine shouted furiously. “You’re bleeding everywhere! Clean yourself up already!”

They expected Joan to scream, to cry, to gobble helpless pleas to God, but she didn’t. Joan just hunched in on herself and began to shake harder. She didn’t even clasp her hands together like she was praying or anything.

“PER-iod!”

It was impossible to discern who let out the first cry; Katherine thought it may have been Maggie, but it didn’t matter because once was enough.

Everyone began to join in.