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spacedadpicard · 7 days ago

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bobby & laura at jack rabbit's palace

so, despite having this ready in time, i somehow missed the deadline for @countdowntotwinpeaks' WONDERFULXSTRANGE event. nonetheless, i figure there's no harm in posting my piece now, though i don't know if it's alright to post to the ao3 collection.

with all that being said, the prompt i decided to write was @sheryllee's 'Bobby and Laura at Jack Rabbit's Palace' and i. ooouughhh my babies. i hope everyone enjoys this as must as i enjoyed writing it.

‘I have an idea.’

Bobby sighs. He doesn’t have to look at Laura to picture the expression on her face: eyes bright and and wild, the corners of her lips twitching upwards. She gets like this sometimes – usually, like tonight, after a few beers and a couple of cigs – and Bobby knows her well enough to know it’s best to play along. Not that there was ever a chance of him doing otherwise.

‘Oh, yeah?’ After a beat, he rolls his head to look at her, a brow quirked, eyes sunken and half-lidded. Without looking away, he lifts his stub of a cigarette for one final drag, ignoring the sting of the red-hot filter between his fingers. ‘What’s your idea, Laura?’

Then, Laura smiles, big and beatific. And, just like that, Bobby remembers exactly why he always goes along with her – with every wild plan and cockamamie scheme. He’s never really been one for religion, but he imagines this is what angels must look like: golden and glowing, light radiating from every pore. Swallowing thickly, he looks away again, dropping the smouldering cigarette end into an empty beer bottle.

‘Let’s play hide-and-seek.’

Despite himself, despite his best attempts at detachment, Bobby finds himself smiling in bewildered amusement, even as his brows draw into a frown. ‘What, now? It’s nearly dark out.’

‘Doesn’t that just make it even more exciting?’ Laura’s voice is high and shrill, her grip painfully tight when she squeezes his arm. ‘Come on. You tryna tell me Big Bobby Briggs is afraid of the dark?’

‘No,’ he retorts, all but puffing his chest out. ‘No, of course not. It’s just stupid. And besides, hide-and-seek is a kids’ game.’

‘And Big Bobby Briggs is all grown up,’ Laura coos mockingly, reaching up to pinch his cheek. Gritting his teeth, he bats her hand from his face, leaning away and out of reach.

‘Don’t do that. I hate it when you do that.’

‘Oh, c’mon, Bobby,’ She persists. ‘One game. Just one! That’s not so much to ask, is it?’

He groans. ‘Why can’t we just sit here and smoke?’

‘Because I’m tired of smoking,’ Laura snaps, eyes flashing; just like that, Bobby is reminded of the other reason why he always goes along with her.

But then, as abruptly as her temper flared, it ebbs away again, leaving behind the Laura he loves and knows. His Laura, he thinks in private, despite knowing she’s never really belonged to him at all. He watches as she pouts, sticking out her pink lower lip and blinking up at him, her eyes shiny and empty as glass.

‘One game,’ she says again. ‘Just one.’

Bobby relents, sighing. ‘Alright. Just one.’

One round turns into two – which turns into three, which turns into four. Every time, Laura is the one who hides, and Bobby is the one who looks for her; it doesn’t really seem fair, but he knows better than to kick up a fuss about it. But on this fourth and final round, he just can’t seem to find her anywhere, and not for lack of trying. It’s already noticeably darker than when they started, deep shadows swallowing the spaces between the trees, buzzing like clouds of flies. Bobby knows these forests, knows them like the back of his hand. Hell, he could walk them in his sleep, if he had to. All the same, his stomach is knotted with fear and worry – a knot that gets tighter every time he turns a bush, a tree, a rock to find that Laura isn’t there.

‘Okay, Laura,’ he calls out finally, trying to keep the panic from his voice. ‘You win. Come out, now.’

Silence. The wind picks up, colder now without the kiss of the sun to soften it. Bobby shivers, reaching for the zip of his bomber.

‘Laura?’

Still nothing. High above, the tops of the trees whistle and groan in the breeze, rocking and swaying. Between their waving branches, Bobby can make out little glimpses of the slate-coloured sky, lined with heavy, grey clouds.

‘Laura,’ he tries one last time, throat tight. ‘Come on, come out.’

Then, he hears a rustle. Snapping his head up, he looks towards the source of the sound, barely able to make out a figure moving in the dark. He swallows thickly, taking a stumbling step back, reaching down to grab a large, heavy rock from the forest floor. And then—

A click. The figure’s face is suddenly illuminated by the bright glare of a flashlight: Laura, her expression contorted into a ghoulish mask, like something off the front of a cheap horror book. She can only maintain it for a couple of seconds, though, before erupting into a fit of giddy laughter.

With a sound of exasperation, Bobby stamps his foot amongst the dead leaves, lobbing the rock against a nearby tree. Reaching up with both hands, he rakes his fingers through his hair, leaving the dark strands messy and tousled.

‘That wasn’t funny!’ He can hear himself – how whiny he sounds, how pathetic. But his heart is still hammering, his breaths coming quick and hard: she frightened him. And right now, he’s still too shaken to pretend otherwise.

‘Oh, lighten up, Bobby,’ Laura chides. She lowers the flashlight, and its bright, glaring beam finds him instead, picking his boots out from the encroaching darkness. ‘When did you get so serious?’

All that, he thinks, and she still has the gall to act like he’s the one in the wrong. And the worst part is that it works; he can feel his face turning hot, heat singeing the tips of his ears.

‘Can we just go already? It’s dark, and I’m cold, and I wanna go home.’

‘Not yet,’ she says, an edge to her voice that wasn’t there a moment ago. Bobby looks at her, trying to gauge her expression, but it’s difficult to make her face out past the glare of the flashlight.

A laugh leaves him – and not because the situation’s funny. It’s a sound of disbelief, more than anything. ‘Laura—’

‘Not yet.’ She spins on a heel, marching away without even waiting for him, heading deeper into the forest. ‘Let’s walk a little further. Come on, Bobby.’

‘You’ve gotta be fuckin’ kidding me…’ He jogs to catch up with her, not wanting to lose sight of the flashlight. Yeah, he could probably make it back home in the dark if he had to, but he’d rather not. Especially after that little scare. ‘You know, some of us have places to be in the morning.’

Laura scoffs. ‘What? Afraid you’re gonna miss football practice? Pull the other one.’ Here, she pulls to an abrupt halt, turning to face him, flashlight pointed at the ground. When she speaks again, her voice is quiet – hesitant, even – her eyes wide and pleading; he can already feel his annoyance melting away, slipping through his fingers.

‘It’s just a little further,’ she tells him, almost whispering. ‘Five, ten minutes. Please, Bobby? I wanna take you somewhere special.’

He holds her gaze for a long moment, expression unreadable. Then, at last, he sighs. ‘Somewhere special, huh?’

This time when Laura smiles at him, soft and grateful, he feels his stomach lurch.

As it turns out, Laura is true to her word, and less than five minutes later the pair of them have reached their destination: a giant decaying tree stump, looming out of the darkness like something alive. Bobby stares as the jagged silhouette slowly emerges from the gloom, its textured surface cast into chiaroscuro by the pale glow of the flashlight. And then, finally, belatedly, he recognises it.

‘My God. Jack Rabbit’s Palace.’ Bobby lets out a low, scratchy laugh, walking closer, while Laura lingers a few steps behind, lighting the way forward. The beam frames him him like a spotlight, sending his shadow shuddering across the rotting red wood. ‘I haven’t been here in months.’

‘I was surprised you didn’t recognise the path,’ Laura says. ‘I guess it looks different in the dark.’

‘Yeah, I guess so.’ More likely he was too stressed and anxious to pay any attention. He decides not to say that. ‘Why here?’

‘Oh, I dunno.’ A pause. ‘I was thinking about those stories you used to tell me – you and your dad coming out here, making up games.’

Bobby turns to look at her, surprised, but Laura isn’t looking at him; her gaze is fixed on the pinnacle of the Palace, reaching into the air high about their heads, her expression vacant and dreamy. Standing there, swaying on the balls of her feet, the flashlight hanging suspended from limp fingers, she looks almost like a broken doll.

‘Yeah?’ he asks.

‘Yeah.’ Right now, she sounds a million miles away; not for the first time, Bobby wonders if she’s on something stronger than booze and cigarettes tonight. ‘It’s… sweet. Picturing the two of you.’

He doesn’t say anything to that. Instead, he pictures his father’s face, patient and open, and remembers how safe he once used to feel with him. A painful lump rises in his throat.

Laura comes up behind him, footsteps muffled by layers of damp earth, fallen pine needles, and soggy dead leaves. He can feel her eyes burning holes in the back of his head. Again, he wonders: Why here? The reason she gave wasn’t much of one. Maybe just to see him squirm. Maybe just to see him cry. Or maybe, just maybe, she actually thought it’d be nice for him to come back here again. Maybe she sees him like his dad does: a small, silly little boy, all knock-kneed and coltish-limbed, and far too sensitive.

‘Didn’t you tell me you used to look for pill bugs here?’

‘Yeah.’ Absentmindedly, he reaches out, hooking a finger under a rotting scab of bark and peeling it away, revealing a clutch of creepy crawlies hiding beneath – pill bugs among them. Frightened by the light, they scatter, wriggling deeper into the wood. ‘Kept some for a while. Put ‘em in empty old ice cream tubs with chunks of bark, and leaves, and bits of cardboard. Didn’t make me very popular, though, so I stopped that pretty quick.’

‘Aw. How… cute?’

He lets out a breath through his nose. ‘Oh, yeah. Downright adorable.’ Straightening up, he pats down his pockets, fishing out a box of cigarettes. With a glance over at Laura, he eases one out of the packet, placing it between his lips. ‘Can I borrow your lighter? Mine’s out of juice.’

Wordlessly, she moves closer to him, digging around in her jacket pocket. After a few moments of searching, she holds up the lighter, flicking it with her thumb. Spark. Breath in. Burn. Bobby inhales, drawing the smoke down, down, down into his lungs, little tendrils of warmth creeping deeper, and deeper, and deeper, until – whoosh. Away it goes. A sinuous cloud, floating up towards the treetops.

A rustle of fabric. Laura brings out a cigarette herself, leaning in to light it off the end of his. With her free hand, she reaches to sweep the hair back from her face, tucking it behind her ears only for it to come loose again. Bobby watches as she draws closer, her brow creased in concentration, eyes focused on the smouldering end of his cig; all of a sudden, he can’t quite seem to catch his breath.

‘You’re beautiful.’ He doesn’t know quite where the words come from – but he knows that he means them. No sooner have they passed his lips, though, than he feels his cheeks set aflame.

Laura looks up at him, surprise evident on her face. It quickly morphs into a grin. ‘Yeah?’ She takes a drag from her cigarette, letting it out in a perfect ring of smoke. ‘You’re not so bad yourself. My big, bad bobcat.’ Saying that, she wiggles her fingers in between his, squeezing tight. Despite the chill of the evening, she feels hot to the touch, so hot it burns. So hot it hurts.

Bobby forces a smile. ‘Yep. That’s me.’

For a moment, she just looks at him. Then, cig tangling from between her lips, she fumbles for the flashlight, switching it off with a faint click and plunging the two of them into darkness. He can just about make out her features in the twilight – the line of her nose; the curve of her lips; the glint of the cigarette’s ember trapped in the white of her eyes.

‘Hey, what—’

Before he can finish his sentence, Laura reaches up to pluck his cig away, replacing the heat of its fire with that of her lips and pouring herself into him like a plume of thick, velvety smoke. Drawing in a sharp breath through his nose, Bobby reaches for her arms, fingers curling tight, tight, tighter than must be comfortable – but she doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t say anything, so he doesn’t let go. And who can blame him? He spent God knows how long looking for her in these woods; it’s nice to have finally found her.

After a while, she finally pulls back, brushing feather-light kisses against his lips, his jaw. He feels dizzy, head buzzing like it does after the first smoke of the day.

‘You still wanna head back?’ she asks, coy and playful. If he plays along, he can almost pretend he doesn’t catch the desperate edge to her voice. The fear.

‘I dunno.’ Gently, he bumps his nose against hers, still trying to catch his breath. ‘Don’t you wanna go home?’

Silence. And then, just as quick as she fell into his arms, she pulls away again. Sniffs, reaching up to grind the heel of her hand into her eye. ‘Not yet.’

For a long few seconds, Bobby doesn’t say anything. Then, finally, he lets out a sigh, nodding into the dark. ‘Alright. Not yet.’ A pause. His palms itch. All he wants is to reach out again. To hold her – gently, this time. As gently as she’ll allow. Instead, he shoves his hands in his pockets, looking again for his dented old pack of cigs. ‘How about one last smoke?’

#wonderfulxstrange #countdowntotwinpeaks #bobby briggs #laura palmer #twin peaks #twin peaks fic #my fic #my writing

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