#so.. im just stuck with this beginning prompt. for now 👁️

[rattycattyfanfic]

missing saw iii scene where lynn asks about the rosary on amanda's belt 👁️👁️👁️👁️

im so sorry this took so long omg. well. ok anyway have this now after like 6 months ;-; thank you so much for the prompt oomf!! <3<3

this is set slightly after the game as i couldnt figure out where to fit it into saw iii canon??

rated: T words: 3,377 cw: religious talk, possible blasphemy?, mentions of scars, substance abuse

Lynn returns to the scene of the crime like a ghost, finds herself in a cab towards the edge of town before she knows what she’s doing. She pulls her coat tighter around her as she gets out, smooths out non-existent creases, and shoves a fistful of bills into the driver’s hand before he can ask any questions and before she can come to her senses. 

It looks different in the daylight, in the harsh hot sun, but when she steps inside it’s as if she’s stepped right back into that fateful night. It’s dingy, a little damp, just as she remembers it. The only difference is a few strings of gaudy police tape leftover from the investigation gone cold, sticking out like party streamers amongst the grime. Lynn’s healed stomach wound itches like it hasn’t in weeks. She sticks her fingers inside her coat, between the buttons of her shirt, and digs her nails into gnarled scar tissue.

Amanda returns to the scene of the crime too, like a stray returning home, like a hyena sniffing for leftovers. Her hunched, hooded form gives Lynn pause, just for a second. She thinks about turning and leaving, suddenly feeling wide awake and stupid. The girl’s shoulders shake, or it seems like it from such a distance, the workshop stretching out between them, her shape fuzzy through those filthy plastic curtains.

She should go. 

She reaches deep into her pocket and pops a valium, and steps forward as quietly as she can.

Just as Lynn has been coming unwound the last few long months, fixating on details, reliving and re-reliving, Amanda also seems to be coming apart. She doesn’t move at all as Lynn approaches, seemingly stuck in place, lost in her head. Maybe her instincts have been dulled by grief or maybe she simply doesn’t care, doesn’t care to turn and look or jump to defensiveness as she would have that night. It works out better for Lynn, at least, but she can’t help but feel a little hollow at the thought of Amanda ghosting aimlessly for the last three months.

Lynn pushes through plastic and stops a boot-length away from the girl’s shoulder.

“You’re stuck too, huh,” Amanda murmurs without turning or looking. Her fingers worry the edge of the stripped and stained hospital mattress, head hung low. Lynn doesn’t know how Amanda could tell it was her. Maybe she’d spent so long stalking her prey that she knows by heart the resonance of her footsteps. Maybe she knows no one else would bother to come looking for her or come back to this tomb of a building. 

“Yeah,” Lynn says simply. She waits, curious to see how this will play out. She’d moved so slowly through the warehouse that her chemical crutch is beginning to kick in, and she can’t find it in herself to be scared, or angry, or anything more than sickly fascinated. She waits with bated breath for something to happen.

Amanda scoffs, a bitter, wet little thing. She scuffs her boot against the tile floor, kicks absently at the foot of the bed. “He should’ve let me kill you when I had the chance,” she grunts, and a shudder shakes her tiny frame. 

Lynn knows better than to ask for clarification. He is the reason they’ve both trailed back here, pathetically searching for answers or absolution or something, anything. “Maybe,” she murmurs passively. 

The girl spins in one quick move, her faded hoodie sweeping around her. She shakes the hood away, and her hair is greasy and wild. “Maybe?” she chokes, disbelieving. It’s not as sharp as it should maybe have sounded, and the wind goes out of Amanda’s sails. Her eyes are wet, raw, and she looks incredibly tired. “What, is that it? You came back here hoping I’d finish the job? Is the gift of your life really that bad?”

Lynn is unflinching. “I don’t know why I came back here,” she says. “I honestly couldn’t tell you.”

Another scoff. Amanda drags her hands over her pink cheeks, combs restlessly through her hair, all her movements speaking to something frustrated and lost and deeply, deeply exhausted. “Great, great. Real fuckin’ smart, doc.” She spins, rubs her face again with nails this time, and then her sleeve, and then turns back to Lynn. Pink lines streak down her cheek, raised claw marks layered on top of her frustrated flush. Her lip curls, and she sighs, only half committed to defensive snarling. “Well, you better figure it out quick, or fucking leave. I’m not in the mood for company.”

And then she settles again at the side of the bed, half-turned away from Lynn. Her hair curtains her face, but her fingers give her away, antsy still as they poke holes in the soiled mattress. She fingers the stuffing and sniffles every now and then, and Lynn is still no closer to understanding anything at all. 

Words spill out of her mouth before she can think better and swallow them. “Have you been here the whole time? Living here?”

Amanda shrugs once. She’s quiet, and Lynn thinks she’s maybe outstayed her welcome already, that she won’t answer. “Been here. Around,” she grunts. She sniffs again, and shudders a breath. “H-he had safe houses. Just in case. Only a couple haven’t been compromised yet.” 

Safe houses, compromised. Lynn is reminded that this is so much bigger than them, a wild goose chase of cops and accomplices straight out of a shitty late night crime show. She feels small, her and her sleepless nights and little orange pill bottles, just a small piece of a sprawling web of pain. “The cops aren’t looking for you?” Lynn asks, and wanders a little. She finds herself at the edge of the room instinctively, back pressed against dirty tile. 

“I’m careful,” the girl mutters. “It’s not hard to disappear, really. Not if you know how.” She digs her fingers into a red-brown hole and toys with a strand of stained stuffing, and then turns to eye Lynn cautiously, still picking. 

“Right.” Lynn thinks she knows, but probably not better than Amanda. She remembers pleading with Jeff, in this very room, in a lawyer’s office, wishing to be heard and doubting she’s even speaking at all. It’s not a problem she can easily fit with what she knows of Amanda, barking and looming as she had that night, but – maybe. No fixed address, almost no material belongings, and the scars on her arms visible even in this low light speak to an unsettling ghostliness, like she might suddenly vanish before Lynn’s very eyes. Her figure wobbles as Lynn ponders this, and she sucks in a steadying breath and slides to the floor, one palm pressed against the wall. 

Her hand slides against something dry and crumbly, and she quickly pulls back into herself. She places her palm on her knee instead, places her forehead on the back of her hand, wills herself to get it the fuck together. She used to be good at that, before exams, before surgeries. She’s out of practice now.

When she looks up again after god knows how long, Amanda is staring at her with a peculiar expression, like she’s something to figure out. She’s chewing her lip, something curious in her eyes – not unkind, but not exactly sympathetic either. “You didn’t learn anything,” she states. It’s not a question.

Lynn barks a short laugh, humourless and harsh. It feels too loud. She feels insane, out of place. Colours swim and pop in her vision from where she’d pressed her hands against her eyes. The diazepam wraps around her like cotton and she feels like maybe this is just some kind of bizarre trauma dream, the work of her brain trying to process any other potential outcome for that night.

“Neither did I,” Amanda whispers, and slowly folds herself down onto the floor by the bed, knees pulled up to her chin, mirroring Lynn. “I — I thought I did, I thought–” She sobs drily and rubs her face against the sleeves of her hood again. She stills, staring at Lynn with hollow eyes and newly wet cheeks. Seemingly never able to be still, her fingers start to toy with something attached to her belt in lieu of the mattress. “He helped me.”

It rings hollow as she says it, like a mantra that’s been repeated too many times to the point of emptiness.

“You were in a trap too,” Lynn realises, too late, too slow. The pieces begin to all fit together slowly, and she begins to understand – this scarred, volatile girl scrabbling for a place to belong, for someone to fix her. Lynn stares harder despite her swimming vision, and thinks she sees faint scars at the very corner of red lips, faded silver but raised just enough to be visible. You’d be surprised what tools can save a life. 

Piece by piece, she thinks she might be able to understand, almost. 

“Catch up,” the girl scoffs, and pulls at the thing attached to her belt in an antsy motion. The almost wooden sounding clicking of – beads? – gets under Lynn’s skin, but maybe it’s supposed to. Or maybe Amanda doesn’t even know she’s doing it. She huffs raggedly, and pauses for a moment to wipe at her cheeks again. “I thought he helped me. I thought he could help you too.” She sniffs angrily. “Look at the fuckin’ state of us.” 

Lynn is quiet. She watches as this strange girl in front of her breathes wetly and stares at her knees, and then at whatever she’s fucking around with. Her hair falls into her face prettily, and her nose is red. That strange click-clacking sound continues as Amanda fiddles anxiously, and Lynn can’t hear herself think over the noise, can’t think of anything to say. 

“What is that?” she asks abruptly. 

“Huh?” Amanda glances up sharply. The sound stops for a second.

“That – whatever you’re fucking with right now,” Lynn bites.

Amanda blinks. “Hu– oh.” She looks down for a moment and worries her lip. She entwines the thing around her fingers and lifts them up slightly, just enough for Lynn to see it above the shape of knees. 

It’s – a string of wooden beads. Lynn thinks she can squint the shape of a small silver cross somewhere in the middle of the string, and furrows her brows. “I didn’t take you for the religious type.”

“I’m not,” Amanda snaps. “I think it’s all a stupid crock of shit.” She rubs her thumb tenderly over one bead as she says it. 

Lynn stares pointedly at the rosary, and saves her breath. 

“Just – don’t. Whatever you’re about to say, don’t,” Amanda grits out. She breathes shakily, and takes the rosary in both hands, laying it across her lap and fingering each bead gently, methodically between trembling fingers. She takes another breath, slower and deeper, as if centering herself. It doesn’t seem to help, and she goes back to click-clacking instead. “When he was – I tried everything, at the end. Every pill, every therapy. Nothing helped, really,” the girl murmurs, quiet and unnervingly vulnerable. 

Lynn nods. She thinks she knows where this is heading – she’s seen it for herself, in the hospital, the sheer desperation of loved ones – but she stays quiet anyway, waits for the words to tumble from Amanda’s mouth, loathe to interrupt this unexpected moment of sharing. 

“I never read as much as I did when I was with him. Homeopathy, philosophy, theology. Fucking medical dictionaries,” Amanda continues. She glances up sharply, meets Lynn’s eye for half a second. “I’m not as stupid as people wanna think.”

“I know,” Lynn murmurs. “First hand,” she adds wryly, and thinks about the horrifyingly expert attempts of manipulation she’d seen her first time meeting the girl. “Go on?”

Amanda’s lips pull into half a smirk, and then she shudders, sucks in a trembling breath. “I read everything. I tried everything. At the end – what harm was it gonna do? He was already half-dead.” Her voice cracks, and a dozen expressions flicker across her face in a moment. “Well – whatever. It didn’t help. It didn’t save him, or me. At least now I know for sure it’s all bullshit.” She stares down at the rosary in her palms for a long moment, considering. “I thought I could save him, if I believed in it hard enough. I thought I could help him like he helped me. Fucking stupid.”

“He didn’t help you, Amanda.” Lynn picks her words carefully, and still kicks herself. “And it’s not stupid,” she murmurs gently, sugar after a harsh pill. “I’ve seen it dozens of times at the hospital. It’s human.” 

Amanda blinks again, and seems dumb-founded by the ounce of human kindness that Lynn manages. She stares at Lynn with huge, dark eyes, emotions unreadable. “I really thought he did,” she mumbles, ignoring the proffered syrupy words entirely. “I thought that – Now I don’t know what to think.” She tangles the rosary up in itself absent-mindedly. It knots around her fingers, loops messily, and Amanda says in a small voice, “I don’t know what to do with myself.” 

“I don’t know, Amanda. I don’t know the answer to that either.”

Amanda’s glassy eyes refocus, and she stares at Lynn with furrowed brows. She glances down at the knotted beads, and begins to attempt to untangle them to no avail. “You’re a real fucking help, doc,” she grumbles. 

Lynn huffs in frustration, and squeezes the bridge of her nose. Talking to Amanda like this is giving her a headache. She almost wishes they were scrapping again. At least that was straightforward, predictable, rather than this back and forth, up and down. “You think I have the answers? If it’s any consolation, I came here for – I don’t know what, but I’m only more lost,” she grits out between her teeth.

“Well. I can still always kill you,” the girl chirps. Her voice is deceptively light. She has the rosary wrapped and stretched around her fingers so hard that her fingertips are turning white. She flashes a dangerous, empty grin and pulls at the beads harder. “That offer’s still on the table.” 

“Thanks so much,” Lynn says flatly. “I’ll let you know if it comes to that.” 

Amanda opens her mouth to say something. She flinches and pauses whatever smart-ass retort she has queued up when the string abruptly snaps between her fingers. Wooden beads scatter across tile, and the girl stares in shock as they bounce every which way. She clutches the snapped and now empty string. “Shit–”

Lynn watches one bead roll across the floor and stop at her feet. She glances up at Amanda, who looks like she might be about to cry again. “Feel better?” she asks, cautious.

Amanda stares at the bead at Lynn’s feet, and then at the string. “No,” she whispers. “Fuck, I– I need that,” she garbles, and lurches forward to try and gather the beads up. “I need those–” she repeats hoarsely, and looks crazed, scrabbling around on the floor. 

Something tugs at Lynn as she watches for a moment, anxious movements and the girl hunched over on the tiles, hands shaking, playful sarcasm gone. She moves forward before she has time to think, and places her hands over Amanda’s trembling ones. “Amanda.”

The girl glances up, startled. She blinks owlishly. She doesn’t, to her credit, pull away from the unexpected touch.

“Stop. He’s gone,” Lynn murmurs. 

Amanda stares, blinks down at the beads surrounding them, and then back at Lynn. Her frame shakes, and she looks about ready to spin out, as if one little piece of string had been all that had held her delusions together up until now. 

“He’s gone. You don’t need them,” Lynn says, low and quiet, as soothing as she can possibly manage. “You said yourself, they didn’t help. None of it helped. He’s dead, it’s over, and there’s nothing those can do about it.” 

Amanda trembles, and then full-body shudders, bowing her head. She makes a horrible sobbing sound, and then nods. “I – yeah. Yeah.” 

“Yeah,” Lynn repeats, and nods, even though Amanda isn’t looking at her anymore. She squeezes cold hands tightly in hers, tight enough that she might worry about hurting her, if they were both different people. She lets the moment breathe, waits and squeezes and stays quiet and still as Amanda seems to try to get herself together, curled over on the floor. It feels familiar, like Amanda hunched and sobbing after John’s seizure, and yet somehow altogether odd.

Finally, the girl sniffs wetly, unpleasantly. She ducks her head, curls her spine to press her wet face to the arms of her hoodie again and wipe away tears harder than necessary. She lets out one tiny, agonised whimper, and then sits back on her haunches and snatches her hands from beneath Lynn’s, tucking them safely back up into her sleeves. 

“Ok?” Lynn asks lowly. 

Amanda shivers, but doesn’t make another move for the beads, or for Lynn. She straightens her back. “Fine. Fucking fine.” 

It’s not very convincing, but Lynn is about at her limit with the touchy-feely stuff that doesn’t come natural to her, and she suspects Amanda is too. She won’t push it. She sits back against the wall again and picks at a loose string on her pants. “Right.”

The girl jerks her head in a nod. She sweeps her sleeves over her cheeks once more, and then she shakes her head. “Bonding time’s over,” she grunts, and stands up, brushing off her pants. She wobbles a little, but stays rigid and upright, and gruffly kicks a few beads Lynn’s way. “Time to go home.”

Lynn watches the girl for a moment, and nods. “Sure, whatever. Good talk,” she says flatly, and gets to her feet, stomping away some pins and needles. Amanda doesn’t look at her or respond, just shoves her hands defensively into her pockets and sweeps through the plastic sheeting as fast as she can without actually fleeing. Lynn follows, a few paces behind, wary but somewhat relieved as they leave the tomb of the meat plant. 

They step back out into blinding sun and heat rising off concrete in funny waves, and it occurs to Lynn that: one, she has never seen Amanda in the sunlight before, and two, Amanda is leaving the plant. She is going somewhere. “Where are you going to go?” Lynn reluctantly asks, shielding her eyes from the sun in the warehouse yard. It’s not that she cares, really – more that if Amanda is going to be hanging around the city, Lynn would like to be aware of it, maybe have an inkling of whether to expect to have another altercation.

Amanda jumps, as if she’d forgotten that Lynn was there at all. There’s that lack of care, again, that Lynn finds mildly concerning. The girl shrugs nonchalantly, and produces a pair of black sunglasses from her pocket. They look fucking ridiculous, and don’t make her look any less conspicuous, but Lynn supposes they do at least make her a little more anonymous. In this light, her face is bright and pale, like an overexposed photo. The scars at the corners of her mouth are barely visible. Dressed like this, she could be almost anyone, could fade into a crowd like a ghost. The thought makes Lynn shudder. 

“See where I end up, I guess,” Amanda chirps, laying on the false bravado once more. “Wouldn’t wanna tell you, anyway. You might hand me in.” She grins, and looks insane, with her hood and sunglasses and generally dishevelled appearance. 

“If I was going to call the police, don’t you think I would have done it by now?” Lynn sighs. 

Amanda shrugs again. “I don’t know. You’re an enigma.” She smirks a little, almost lecherous, and then furrows her brow. “Anyway. This has been fun. Let’s not do it again sometime, ok?” And with one more unsettling grin, she heads off in a random direction, as if she knows where she’s going or where she’ll end up. Lynn is left standing outside a derelict crime scene, scratching her scarred belly through her coat and trying to remember the taxi rank phone number.

AO3

[spaceyflowerswriting]

encouraging (jace park x reader)

details: kind of a crack/fluffy drabble, gender neutral reader who is friends with mira; reader is only mentioned lol, general canon au, you and jace are strangers

summary: jace is a nervous wreck over his blind date with you so his friends are showing support to help him feel better.

a/n: OK I NEED TO MAKE IT CLEAR reader is Only mentioned. like seriously. this was just an excuse to write silly family antics ft burn knuckles and j high gang im sorry

also this scenario. it doesnt make any sense for jace to be in a classroom with the fashion department students because they're in different departments but just ignore that logic <3

×

"Jace, how have--JESUS CHRIST!"

"Huh...?" Jace honestly looked like a mess at the moment. He barely got any sleep in the past few days and he'd been out of it. Couldn't even focus on Burn Knuckles's group workouts, couldn't even focus in class. He only snapped out of his daze from staring out the window thanks to Zack.

The guy had jumped a good distance back while his girlfriend still stood nearby, a hand clasped over her mouth.

"I've never said that in my entire atheist life but--" Zack straightened up, blinking himself back into focus or he would've gone on a tangent. "Nevermind. Jace, what the hell happened to you?"

"Yeah, are you okay?" Mira added, brows creasing in worry.

"I'm fine," was Jace's automatic reply, which made Zack walk back to him to give him a light punch on the shoulder.

"Pull yourself together! Are you like this because of the blind date Mira set you up on?!"

"Oh... so you know, too..." Jace put his head in his hands.

"Of course I do--"

Before he could finish, he was interrupted by a, "Hah!" Zoe dramatically spun around in her seat, facing the three. "Pretty sure the whole school knows. The Burn Knuckles guys won't stop talking about it! They even put up posters to support you."

"Ah..." This was to be expected, of course, with how overly supportive the group was, but Jace still felt embarrassed. At the same time he had too much anxiety to even think about it. All he felt thankful for at the moment was the fact that his blind date wasn't someone in the school.

Zack frowned. "Hey, c'mon, man. You signed up for this. At least own it."

Mira gave him a small nudge with her elbow and Zack quickly murmured an apology. She turned back to the poor guy seated in his desk, offering words of sympathy. "I'm sorry, Jace. I didn't think you'd get this stressed out. You can back out if you want, my friend would understand--"

Jace shook his head. "No, I'm fine. I swear."

"Ah...?"

"Plus, Zack's right." Jace's palms were getting sweaty. How could he just "own it" though? Sure, he had a lot more common sense than the other boys around, but he still had little experience in the romance field! Not to mention, the last time he thought he was getting somewhere with his love life, it crumbled into a lie. What if it was the same with his new blind date?!

No... no way. That was an entirely different situation. He really did have to pull himself together. What was he thinking? He shouldn't let one girl ruin his trust. Maybe this new person would be his soulmate! Not to mention, they were a friend of Mira's, and Mira knew how to spot fake people from genuine people. Her friend had to be a good person.

Zoe reached over to tap the front of Jace's desk, interrupting his thoughts and making him look up. "Are you seriously that bothered? Cheer up!" She gave him a bubbly smile. "Remember Mira only asked you because she said her friend specifically had an interest in nerdy guys? You're already their type! It's a win-win!"

Mira nodded reassuringly and Jace glanced at her and then back at Zoe. "I... I guess."

"Yeah, so don't worry! Plus, for an architect guy, you actually have good style so you're good in the fashion department."

"What's that mean--" Jace started, until he remembered how he had to ask Jay for help to dress up Vasco when he had a blind date a while ago. The memory made him smile a bit and he started to ease up very slightly. He meant this in the nicest way possible, but if even Vasco could have a good blind date, then surely he could also.

Speaking of his beloved friend, the man came bursting into the classroom with a cake in his hand.

...With the rest of Burn Knuckles following after.

"JACE! WE'VE PREPARED A FAREWELL PARTY FOR YOU!"

"I'm not going off to war or something!!" Jace immediately shouted back.

"THEN A PRE-CELEBRATION!" Vasco offered instead, the members behind him echoing, "A PRE-CELEBRATION!!"

Suddenly filled with bare minimum confidence (and the support of his best pals), Jace shot up from his seat. "Alright... let's celebrate!!" He ended up running out of the classroom with his gang, a skip in his step.

Zack turned to his friends as soon as the door shut behind Jace. "Who wants to make bets?" Mira gave him a much harder elbow nudge. "Ow... I was just kidding, haha..."