#things that crack me up? the knowledge that bea and felix probably always make the ppts when they are involved in group projects

[hiemaliis]

@athensborn​  sent  →   “ I  am  so  very  proud  of  you. ”

she did not always know what to say, much less do when someone was proud of her. a cynical part of her was quick to blame her mother and the lack of praise she had had to offer, but beatrice was tired in a strange way, these days. probably because it was summer and it was too hot for her to do much more than sulk in the shadows and only appear when someone asked for her presence, like some sort of grumpy demon.

it was with no small amount of awkwardness that she reached out for dion’s arm and squeezed it twice, her gaze stubbornly not meeting his eyes. once, she might have argued that due to her age, her true age, some of her accomplishments had long become meaningless; she was bound to get good grades, mostly because she had taken classes in the same subjects for a very long time now. but if this century, young as it was, had taught her anything, it was not to underestimate the effort she put into school.

( her powerpoint presentations alone were proof enough for that. )

‘ ‘ thanks, ’ ’ she mumbled as she reached for her water glass. ‘ ‘ it means a lot. ’ ’

[jane-the-zombie]

each dawn i die || felix & jane

TIMING: August 17, Night. LOCATION: Deep Woods off a hiking trail PARTIES: @streetharmacist & @jane-the-zombie SUMMARY: Jane calls Felix to help deal with a problem after she awakens. CONTENT: Addiction warning, Panic Attack, Mentions of murder and gun violence.

Jane dragged the bodies so they were all in a line. Tourists who never asked to run into a feral zombie in the middle of the woods. She didn’t think about the attack as she sat on a fallen log. She crushed the cell phone she pulled off the woman with her hands, and was gingerly holding the one she pulled off the young one as she waited for Felix to come to her. God. She didn’t know who else to call - actually, Jane didn’t know who else she would call. Felix was her first friend, the one that had been there with her since the beginning. Appearing out of the shadows as she set her wedding dress aflame, and never leaving even after all these years. Her first friend. The only reminder of the past she allowed herself to keep. Jane felt the phone screen crack in her hands, the dulled sharpness barely cutting her fingers. “Crap!” She mumbled, looking down at it to make sure she could still use it. She only had one more body to choose from. Jane heard Felix before she saw him, but she doesn’t bother getting up because she’s honestly not certain what to do. She looked awful, hair a tangled rat's nest, the victim's blood mixed with her own on her face and on her body, and she was certain there were bits of brains that she missed. She kept touching her face and her head, feeling for bullet holes or pieces of skull… Jane finally looked up, squinting slightly  at Felix’s form.

She opened her mouth, unsure what to tell him. Thank you for coming? Instead she said, “He took my badge.” It was like a missing part of her. It was supposed to be clipped straight to her belt like it always was but it was just gone, along with her gun. “He took my badge.” She said again. She realized that was the only thing she could say. As if Felix would know what that meant. Jane’s eyes watered. She felt grimy and strange, and she had just killed three people. “Right off my belt.” She touched the place where the now broken chain hung limply off her belt.

What was it with humans and dying on him? His head hurt, his eyes hurt. Felix tried his darndest to think of it as cleaning up after a job gone poorly but he couldn't. He swore at himself for thinking like some kinda brute. It wasn't a job. He wasn't a clean-up crew. He was a friend and that thought pushed his foot down harder against the gas. Sure, he didn't know how to drive too well and he didn't have a license, but he had a feeling that Jane wouldn't be in an arresting mood. Not after--Another pull of his cigarette. The fae tightened the belt of his dressing gown as he stepped out of the car. Wingtips weren’t the ideal hiking shoe but he cut through the woods like he took to it naturally. Pulse racing as it was, it would have been impossible not to. Movement caused his to slow some and he huffed a breath as he came to a stop at the sight of her.

“Geez, Jane, there you a--”

His jaw slackened then fell, the unvoiced words tumbling out. A stranger to death, he was not. And there she was, gore and bone strewn about her feet. She was a friend and she had called him. A hand reached up to his glasses and slid them off. Folded them up nice and neat to put into his pocket. His brow furrowed.

“He took your badge? Who did?”

Blood was caked to her skin, her clothes, everything. Jane could feel it. The crusty, dried red-brown liquid, but it didn’t feel as it should. As Felix came closer, removing his glasses, she realized that Jane wasn’t sure she wanted him to look at her. At what she’d done. But it was too late for that now, wasn’t it? She told him outright what she had done on the phone, and he came anyway. Her oldest friend in a -- was that a gucci bathrobe? Her eyes stung and she almost wanted to laugh, but it caught in her throat.

“Who?” She repeated. Who took her badge - except, Felix didn’t care about her badge. He cared about how she got in the middle of the woods, near a few hikers… But her badge. Roy had ripped it off her like it was nothing. It wasn’t nothing. Her job meant everything to her, it was the only thing that kept her grounded and he just took it from her.

Her hands trembled slightly as she went to touch her face, gingerly touching right between her eyes. It didn’t feel like her anymore, but perhaps she expected her face to be blown in. It wasn’t, it was normal. Or as close to normal as it would ever be again. Best not to dwell on the differences. “Roy Chambers.” Jane said quietly. “I was following a lead after a woman connected to him got arrested.” Was she trying to die? Jane wasn’t sure she wanted to think about that this second. Jane swallowed hard. “He - “ She touched her chest, where the hole in her shirt was, singed, right over where her heart should be. Jane touched her face again, remembering the flash as the gun went off in her face. “He shot me. And took my badge. And shot me again.” Jane looked back sadly at the bodies she had lined up in a row, hand playing with the broken chain on her belt.

“It’s gone.”

The cigarette between Felix’s fingers shook. Blood was different than ash and he nearly laughed because, heck, now he had seen her in both. And there was so much of it. Most of it on her. Any wisecracks were left promptly at the door where he had forgone putting any socks on. If his feet hurt, he didn’t notice in the slightest. He sucked on his teeth as he looked at Jane. Concern twitched at the corners of his lips as he patted at his pockets. He was sure, so sure...He whipped out a clean handkerchief with a sigh of relief. Always keep a kerchief on hand, who had told him that? Rothstein? Or Luciano? In case of blood. The noise in his throat was as watery as a grave.

Roy Chambers. The mottled grass flattened under his steps and shadows wisped along his hand as he offered the kerchief to her. “Chambers did this? Shit.” Erin Nichols would need to know, but right then, he filed it away for a different sunset. He had known that Jane would die one day. Had from the moment he saw her and the bite she carried. Plenty of his friends, near and far, had fallen away to the earth as he continued on. It was the very nature of things. Some were born already dying. It made his head, his heart no less, hurt at the back and forth of life and death that some seemed to waver between. Bea, now Jane. Her car in the water had nearly scared him into daylight. Even with the carnage and the loss of life and the knowledge that Roy fucking Chambers, let alone strangers, were killing his friends, he couldn’t help but look at Jane with profound relief. The kind that emptied the lungs of smoke and air.

“We’ll get it back,” he said as he took his fading cigarette out from between his lips. “Hey, Jane?” His tone lacked the jovial tune he would have worn any other night. “You’re not gone though, huh?” Dark eyes glanced at the row of torn apart bodies and the blood Jane wore. “That’s something, right?”

She stared at the kerchief doubtfully as he handed it to her, and she gingerly picked it up between the thumb and forefinger, as if she was afraid of getting it dirty. Jane looked down at herself, at her once-stark white blouse stained a grimey rust color. She wasn’t sure what was her own blood, the victim's blood, or straight up dirt anymore, and she knew her face was even worse. Carefully though, she dabbed at her face. Felix knew who Chambers was -- of course Felix knew who Chambers was. That was a good thing. Right? She swallowed hard, keeping herself from looking back at the bodies for the upteenth time. “I went without backup,” Jane said, closing her eyes. She shut them hard, rubbing them tiredly. Jane knew she shouldn’t have gone without backup, and yet she did it anyway.

Somehow, though, she couldn’t stop thinking about that feeling before the pain sunk into her bones. The good feeling, the rush of dying she got before she actually died. She pressed her lips together, looking up at Felix as he told her they’d get it back. Doubtful, it was probably at the bottom of the lake along with her car. “No, I’m not gone.” Jane agreed. Not gone at all. And suddenly the weight of something hit her -

“I -”

Jane realized what it was. The weight of forever didn’t just go away with death. She stared at Felix, her eyes wide and she clutched the kerchief in her hand. “He took my - He took it. And I killed them.” Jane said. Her hands shook and she took a step towards him. “I need -” Her heart wasn’t beating. She was freaking out, but she couldn’t feel her heart beating. She couldn’t feel the blood pumping in her ears, and she couldn’t feel the rush of adrenaline the panic was supposed to give her. She couldn’t feel that anymore. The tears started without her realizing. “I need you to give me something.”

Felix rubbed the pad of his thumb and pointer finger together as he cherry picked through his thoughts. She went without backup. He wanted to snort. To grab her by her bloodied shoulders and ask why she’d do a thing like that. Wasn’t that against cop creed or something? Sure it was. If anyone knew what went against cop creed, it would have been the guy who actively laughed at it. Then there was a memory of an explosion and she had saved his life and jiminy, it was such a Jane thing to do, going without backup, that he scrubbed a hand over his face. Left his fingers to tap against his upper lip.

“Right, exactly, you’re not.” He lowered his hand to his side as he looked at her full of foolhardy earnestness that steadied him some. Fates, was he getting comfortable with comforting people that had died and came back? Not just people, the people closest to him? The thought of that being a reality roused a pulsing in his head that he tried to shake away. And as quickly as the thought came, it ran away into the woods somewhere as her eyes fell on him and an alarm sounded. He hated how his pulse jumped slightly as she moved towards him. Between the blood and the death, both hers and not, he was as shaken as a martini.

“Wu, hey. It’s alright, it’s gonna be alri--” It didn’t sound good enough to him and he changed course. “You didn’t mean to. He killed you and he dumped you out here.” The word spat out to the bloodied dirt as he said it. “You didn’t mean to kill ‘em, alright? It’s real crummy but you didn’t mean to, it ain’t like you, and it...it happens. It ain’t your fault that you were bit or that you were dumped out here to die alone like you’re nothing--which you’re not--or that these people happened along at the worst fucking time, but hey, ain’t that just life?” He was nearing breathlessness as weeks and months of not quite mourning but still close enough rushed out.

At her question, he finally met her watery eyes. Took in a breath to try and calm himself because hell, the both of them didn’t need to be having breakdowns next to some dead family.

“What d’you need, Jane?”

The shock of not being able to feel things like before blinded her to a lot of Felix’s words. There was supposed to be blood pounding in her ears as her heart raced. The adrenaline would move through her body until her knees shook. But there was nothing. That made sense, she had no blood anymore. No heartbeat. But the rush was gone too. She needed that rush. Why wasn’t it there? Panic consumed her - Jane wasn’t certain she had ever had a real panic attack before, but as her lungs expanded, she almost choked on her words as she stared at Felix with wide, wide eyes. Ain’t that just life? These people didn’t deserve to die. And maybe she fucked up by checking out her lead without backup but she certainly didn’t deserve to be dumped in the middle of the woods like she was nothing.

But she wasn’t nothing. Jane wasn’t nothing. She was here. She was here forever. She was going to be here forever. Jane back at Felix, her mouth dry. “I - it’s - I can’t stop.” Jane realized. Her hands were shaking. She was still clutching the kerchief like it was going to breathe some life into her. The dull softness of the fabric felt nice. She didn’t want to let it go. “Make it stop. Can you make it stop?”

Jane looked back to the bodies - to the pieces of family that she left behind. God, this was her fault. Roy dumped her here, but this was her fault. She started this. “How do I make it stop?” Jane asked, panicked. “How do I make them go away. Make it go away? What do I do? Felix, what do I do now?” Jane realized then she didn’t have a plan for what came next. She never had a plan for what came next, she just lived from adrenaline high to high and without that, all that was left was fear and guilt and regret.

“Please. Make it stop.”

It was the rarest of instances where Felix couldn’t shuffle word after word seamlessly. Splay them out neatly like a winning hand, a smile to match. Death was the deepest of silences. A place where words were snuffed out. And they were just that. Dried out on his tongue until he swallowed them back down until all he could do was look at Jane. Look at Jane and listen. Perhaps, he thought, that was the best thing to do. The right thing. As unnatural as it was to consider what was right and what was wrong. That was for the philosophers and he wasn’t one of those. It didn’t pay.

Her hand was frigid when he grabbed it with his own. He squeezed it tentatively. The fae knew he couldn’t squeeze any life back into her. Empty blood bag after blood bag, brain after brain, until the color came back to her skin. He didn’t know everything, no one did, but he knew that much. As he looked at her, he thought of Remmy. How they wanted the thoughts to stop, to go away. He didn’t consider himself much of a helper, not truly, but right then, he desperately wanted to be. Like he had been before. Maybe nature was malleable to a certain degree, he thought, as he squeezed Jane’s hand again.

“I can’t make it stop,” he admitted with a shake of his head. He dropped her hand, came to stand between her and the corpses she had made. Shadows made their way through false human skin and inhuman eyes looked at Jane. Two dim lights that blinked at her slowly. As if his shadow might overtake the great dark behind him. “But I can help it go away, Jane. For a little bit at least. I’ve got something for that whenever you need it.” The corner of his mouth lifted some. Felix usually did have something, one way or the other. As soon as Jane had told him that she died, he had hunted for the right thing before he stumbled out the door. “Not here though, alright?” He glanced back at the evisceration. “You don’t gotta take care of this but if you want to, I’ll help, alright?”

God, what was Jane supposed to do now? These people would disappear, join the absurd stack of cold missing persons cases in the WCPD… Another mistake, though she supposed this time it wouldn’t go on her record even if it had cost other people their lives. No - stop that. Jane swallowed hard as she, as gently as she could, squeezed Felix’s hand back.

Felix couldn't make it stop right now, but he could give her something later. So she had to make it stop right now. Jane forced herself to remember what to do when she had to defuse a situation. Except she was the situation. She forced herself to take deep breaths, though she noticed that she didn't really need them. Her lungs expanded only because she forced them. It was still a feeling, though. Something to focus on as she stared into the shadows. Somehow, it was better, watching Felix’s shadows come, forming a barrier between her and what she had done. The death she made. She didn’t have to look at it. No one had to look at it anymore, for now, at least. She looked into Felix, into the light in his eyes.

“Felix, I…” Her voice softened from the hard panic it was moments before. Jane wasn’t sure what to say now. What she could say to make this better. “You’re my oldest friend.” She said finally. The truth of the matter. They were friends. Somewhere along the way -- the arresting attempts, the drugs, the years of knowing each other had made them that. And he was the only one she had kept. Her head tilted to the side slightly, the tears brimming her eyes as the cool breeze of the night just barely chilled her skin. “We should get to work.” She fiddled with the broken chain on her belt again, still feeling like a part of her was missing. Jane took a few more deep breaths, feeling her chest contract and expand as she shook her head.

“The fact that you came - after everything - means a lot. You know that, right?” She sniffed miserably. “Especially since I’ll owe you another bathrobe after this.” It was a half joke, and all she could manage. Jane gave him a watery, grateful half smile as she gently used the kerchief to dab at her wet eyes, before saying, “I’m sorry.”

It shouldn’t have been as fascinating as it was. How much weight humans could put into the loss of other human life. Death was a natural end. It was the bridge they all crossed. Some quicker or slower than others. Felix supposed it was different if they were the ones that caused it and Jane...She couldn’t help it, that much he knew. But somehow, through shadow and blood, a different kind of help might be found. The shadows wisped off him like campfire smoke as he looked at Jane.

“Geez, Jane, you calling me old? That smarts. I’m young for a shadow deer, you know,” he said, a quiet attempt at humor. But he understood what she meant. Straight through to the heart of it. “Listen, I just...I’m real glad to be your friend. I want you to know that. I mean, I wouldn’t tolerate just anyone else trying to arrest me after all these years.” He found strength in his words, his oldest friends, and intended for them to lend some to her. Because heck, she needed it and he wasn’t going anywhere for a long time. As it stood, neither was she and he tried not to smile at that. It didn’t seem like the place for it, even if the corner of his mouth curved up slightly.

“You saved my life, Jane, it’s only fair that I help you,” he said to her as he tilted his head. “Heck, it’s not even about that.” His brows drew in. They could stand there and talk about what it meant but there were bodies rotting behind them and blood coagulating. He huffed a laugh and shook his head. Pulled at the sleeve of his bathrobe as if to say oh, this old thing? “Sorry about what? The only sorry thing is that shirt of yours. It’s a mess.” He winked at her. But she was right. It was as good a time as any to get to work. It had been a cool minute since he had to hide a body but surely it was just like getting back on a bicycle. He turned towards the line of bodies with his hands loose on his hips. “What’d you wanna do with ‘em, Jane? Bury them?”

Jane stared at Felix for a long time -- too long -- before the ghost of a grin flashed across her face. “And I don’t just offer handcuffs to every criminal I pass by on the street.” This wasn’t funny and none of this was okay and if Jane thought too hard, she could see a flash of a gun go off. It might not be okay for a long time, Jane knew. Maybe forever. But she had forever to figure out her feelings now, didn’t she? And maybe she didn’t need to be okay right now. Felix was here to help her, for now. And that was good enough for her. Good enough to chase away the horrible thoughts and feelings. They would linger much like the shadows floating out of Felix’s skin, but they could be controlled. She could be controlled.

She reached for him then, the tips of her fingers lightly tapping his shoulder. “You don’t get to come back, you know.” Jane said it before, but the weight of it somehow hadn’t been as heavy as it was now. Felix’s mistakes were permanent, and she didn’t know if she could handle losing a friend like him. Her mistake -- the one with Roy -- was not. She saw the flash of a gun in her face again, and it took her a moment to blink the image away. To reorient herself. Jane’s head tilted to the side slightly, and she glanced down at herself, touching the filthy fabric of her blouse. “Well, it was a bitch to get stains out of anyway.”

Her voice grew distant as she thought about the matter at hand. What did she want to do with the bodies? She pressed her lips together, before nodding once. “Burying them seems right. Deep in the ground, so the animals can’t get them.”

The fae wondered if he tried to bring light too quickly. That wasn’t Felix’s forte and his mouth twisted into a frown but then Jane smiled and he breathed again. It was good to see her smile again, even through the blood and grime. There was a good chance it was wrong to laugh in front of a few corpses but much like light, right and wrong was something swaddled in obscurity as far as he was concerned. It was something he decided on for himself, not old words or people. Jane was his friend. “Oh thank the fates, that’ll help me sleep better during the day.” He said it dryly with a mock roll of his eyes, a nervous laugh in his mouth. “I was getting real worried that you might be two-timing me.”

The mood shifted again and for a moment, his shadows stilled as he looped his thumbs around each other. “I know,” he said softly as Jane tapped at him. Didn’t he just? No amount of blood or bone could bring him back from where he went when the time came. It just wasn’t how he was made. Even shadows had to leave. He didn’t want to think about that and he shook his antlered head. “But we don’t gotta think about that for a while, I still got a few good centuries in me! And you do too.”

At Jane’s words, he started to move. “Right, okay. The car I momentarily borrowed might have one of those foldy safety shovels? I’ll be right back, alright? I ain’t leaving you behind or nothing.” He went and came back by shadow quickly, small shovel in hand as he reappeared before Jane. His voice dropped again as he put a hand on her shoulder. “Hey, if you wanna stay somewhere, my place is yours. I’ll just let Bea know. I don’t think she’ll mind. I got a feeling that this kinda thing is something she’d be real understanding about.” Probably more than expected, honestly, but that was something for Bea to share if she wanted. The last time they had met had gone well and his heart warmed at the thought of it. Granted the circumstances were wildly different. His bare eyes looked at her, his expression as earnest as his voice. As he looked at Jane and heard gunfire, thought of Pat’s Place and the bitterness of poison, his shadows shifted around his inhuman form almost violently. “It’ll be okay, Jane. Maybe not right now or heck, even this year, but it will be.”

At least the laughter was there, even if a little forced. The wry grin on Jane’s face even felt a little genuine. He was wrong, though. She didn’t just have a few good centuries left in her, she had more than that. For a moment, the weight of forever was back on her shoulders and she couldn’t breathe. What would she do when Felix was gone? And what about Marley? Her father? Sister and brother? People that lay in the back of her mind that she told herself she had forgotten were flashing through her mind, and for a second she forgot how to breathe. Would Felix fear the end when the time came? Would it hurt like it had for her? But Felix was right. It was foolish to think about that now. She forced air to enter her lungs again and her mind was still.

He was gone and back before she could even register where he had gone at all. His hand felt light on her shoulder as she pulled her gaze from the headless corpse. Staring at the carnage wasn’t good for her, it almost made her hungry again. She looked at Felix, eyebrows knitting together. “As long as you’re sure she won’t mind. I like Bea,” Jane said, giving him a small smile. She had been awfully kind when they all ran into each other in the middle of the woods. Jane looked at him, and for a moment she felt like she was going to start to sob. Not right now, not this year, or maybe even ever. “I know,” Jane said back, quietly.

The world would keep on turning with or without her anyway. With or without anyone, really. Jane took the shovel from Felix’s hand and looked back at the corpses. The world would miss Albert and his family, but it would move on. Jane could move on. But right now, there was work to be done, bodies to bury, and a death to forget. In a few hours time, the sun would rise, and she would begin the first day of the rest of her life. The first day of forever.