#sorry to derrick for making him deal w her again

[haunthouse]

"i'm just tired." + derrick and jaylen

self-indulgent au where jaylen got killed instead of shadowed bc i. think abt jaylen in the trench again a lot

It’s the third time Jaylen’s died, and she still hasn’t figured out where the fuck her room in the trench is.

The first time, she’d been too far gone to even process it when hallways and rooms started branching from the field. The second, she’d spent most of fighting; god fucking knows enough people’d wanted a piece of her, and by the time she’d been called up with the Hall Stars she’d been tired, yes, bloodied, yes, but victorious.

She settles this time for sitting at the base of her statue in the Hall — still of the first time she was incinerated, as if nothing but that initial martyrdom matters, the bright-eyed excitement on her marble face before anyone’d known what this splort could really do. She sits, and she waits to be pulled to the field to pitch, like the first two times, and she waits for someone else to come into the room, and she waits for fucking anything, and none of it happens.

Until there’s footsteps, harsh against the stone floors. They walk slow and aimless, then stop in their tracks, and by the time she looks up Derrick’s back is to her and beating a hasty retreat. She can’t fucking blame him for it, but still she calls out, voice echoing far too loudly. “Wait.” She regrets it as soon as it’s out, but it’s too late to take it back.

Derrick stops. “Hello again, friend of a friend,” he says, static tilting the words sarcastic.

“Don’t make it weird,” she snaps, then winces, then digs her palms into the sharp corners of the statue’s pedestal to keep herself from saying anything else she’ll wish she hadn’t.

“I had no idea what you meant.” He looks back at her, just close enough for her to see him rolling his eyes. Static whirrs like he’s speaking under his breath, but she can’t make out if there’s any words in it. Can’t read his expression.

“Can you —” she cuts off, pride preventing her from actually asking for help, even here, dead three times over and talking to someone who probably wants nothing more than for her to be gone. “Listen, I need a favor.”

“I never promised you a thing, what do you want me to do?” Even with the distance and through the radio she can feel the bitterness in it. Which is — whatever, it’s fair, their last conversation wasn’t exactly on great terms, even if she did make sure to slip a if I get incinerated you’ll talk to me in the trench right clause that’d gone mostly-ignored.

“Listen, dude, if anyone else had stumbled in here first I would’ve just asked them. Even fucking Perez hasn’t come in to try and give me the grand tour again — I have no clue how long I’ve been here, and it’s not my fault you’re the only asshole dumb enough to wander into the big creepy statue room, and —”

“This story’s going somewhere.”

“I can’t find my fucking room.”

“Where, where? When you asked me that question it sounded like a joke.”

“No, I’m — this place is a fucking maze and I don’t know where the fuck it is, but I know you do, because I know you guys raided it for instruments or whatever, and —” Her voice is picking up volume, and she stops all of a sudden, quiets back to a tired mumble. “I’m just fucking tired, dude.”

Static whirrs under his breath again, but he seems to give up on finding lyrics. Instead, he turns on his heel and starts walking away again.

Jaylen stands up, hands clenched into fist at her sides. “Seriously? I’m not asking to be best friends, I just want to know where my fucking bed is —”

“You never understood me much,” he says, turning back around and making a follow me gesture. “It’s just us, walking home and dodging cars. The rest of the believers follow brighter burning stars.”

“Oh,” Jaylen says, halfway taken aback. It takes a moment before she remembers how to move her feet to follow.