#thread: jude1

[jollytalkerollywalker]

Laughter bubbled from Olly’s lips as he stared down at his phone, cheeks sore from the cheesy grin that seemed to have permanently taken residence on his face. His eyes shone with glee as he pinched the screen, zooming in on the photo that Teddy had just sent him. It was an adorable selfie of his friend – were they friends? Was that really a suitable word to describe what they had? He wasn’t sure Teddy was ready to put a label on things, so he supposed it would do quite well for now! – stretched out on his sofa, his arm braced behind his head, the gorgeously plump ginger tomcat that he’d adopted plonked firmly on his tummy. It also hadn’t gone unnoticed to Olly that his positioning was also causing his shirt to ride up in the aforementioned selfie, giving him a glimpse of Teddy’s rather delicious midriff. His cheeks burned with the blush the blood that was rushing to them, his tummy suddenly doing somersaults. 

Remembering where he was – currently leaning against the rough bark of a tree, halfway along a hiking trail that he’d dragged Jude on at the crack of dawn – Olly's head jolted up, the bright smile on his face managing the near-impossible task of stretching even wider the minute his gaze landed on his best friend. Just a short distance away, Jude found himself firmly seated against what Olly imagined was the driest patch of grass he could find, leaves scattered around him, a veritable autumnal rainbow littered across the bank. Jude had insisted on the two of them taking a break, and Olly had delighted in the prospect of getting to soak in the sunrise with his best guy. Coming to a halt at the edge of a lake, he’d watched happily as June had planted his bottom down onto the grassy bank and kicked his shoes off, dipping his toes into the water below. That’s when Teddy’s text has come through, explaining that the stray cat he’d come to adopt had been pawing at his door at some ungodly hour, begging to be let in. 

Shoving the device back into his pocket after shooting off a few Heart Eye Emojis and insisting that they were both the most handsome boys in the world, Olly bounded towards his friend, dropping down into the grass next to him with absolutely no tact or sense of self care. With an ungraceful oof sound, he followed Jude’s lead and removed his hiking boots, placing them next to him before sinking his feet into the tepid water. They’d been lucky to avoid a frosty morning, the last remnants of summer clinging on for dear life. 

Content, he reached out and let his hand drop absently against Jude’s thigh, palm up and fingers wiggling cutely as they awaited the other man’s own. Dipping his head, he pressed his cheek to Jude’s shoulder and released another, softer giggle. 

“Don’t you think this is kind of romantic?” Olly teased, biting his lip as he stared out across the water, taking in the sights. 

It was all in jest, obviously. Olly had been harboring a crush on Jude for as long as he’d known he and Marianne, but it had never truly amounted to anything. Their friendship was a little unconventional, and they certainly got a lot of stares here and there, but Jude had always been comfortable in his own sexuality and hadn’t ever had any qualms about welcoming Olly’s affection, despite how open he’d been about being attracted to him. In fact, Jude seemed to embrace the fact, and that only made Olly adore him all the more for it. He was more than content to be loved unconditionally by Jude, even if it was only in the platonic sense. Besides; Now he had Teddy to daydream about. 

“Maybe we don’t tell Laney about this,” he joked, shifting slightly to look at the other man. His nose brushed Jude’s jaw and Olly allowed himself the freedom to press a kiss to his cheek in the process. “Or Teddy – I definitely don’t want him getting the wrong idea about us!” 

[charliexclayton]

Charlie did not know who she would have been if the misfortune of coming into this town hadn't befallen her. She had been particularly ordinary in the real world, with no real aspiration or sense of direction. It was like that in Hell Town too, she supposed, but at least she wasn't faced with life or death situations in the real world. It was easy for her to lose herself here, when there was nothing tethering her to a sense of self in the first place. Charlie felt like a stranger in her own skin, she wanted so desperately to molt and start anew. But she knew her blood stained hands ran deeper than the surface, that it transcended flesh and bone to settle in the marrow where from there it rotted and poisoned her from the inside.

There was a lot that she wanted to say to Jude, uncertain and bitter on her tongue but she found she could not form the words. Something tugged them back from the inside, pulling them close to her corroded heart where they would tattoo themselves in defiance of being denied. In truth, she did not know what Conor would have wanted. She had barely known him when she had requested his help and sealed his fate forever. He had had no burial, she hadn't even been able to find his corpse again. Sometimes late at night she wondered if that was why he was haunting her. Had he wanted his death to mean something? Could he have known when he shoved her back to sacrifice himself that he would endure in the depth of her misery, embalmed there until Charlie took her final breath and joined him? In his ghostly and ghastly presence she found herself to afraid to ask.

Did Jude have regrets? The rancher had always been entwined with solidarity. Prior to today, Charlie hadn't really had the chance to speak with Jude or get to know them. There was respect there, to be sure, but now sitting across from her she realized that there was nothing separating them in this reality, that they were both lonely people that sought solace from it in different ways. Charlie wondered if Jude hurt just as deeply as she did. This was not something she wanted the answer to. She could not let herself stew in the misery of others, could not afford to care and lose again. First Conor, then Shaw, and Jude (so much like her in her hurt) that death, in its inevitability, would be fashioned from her own hands in due time; when the days were a little too dark and the nights a little too long. The strings of fate were like that: fragile enough to be cut by a tree, but strong enough to hang yourself from when the time was right.

Rest. It mauled at her in the ache of her bones, despairing that it may never be felt again. Sleep rarely brought it. Even there she was tightly wound. Alcohol, while great at releasing the tension, did little to alleviate its cause. She nodded at Jude, hearing her words even if they would not sink into her hardened skin. She took a second to compose herself, to wipe at her face and flatten her hair with her palms, ignoring the tug of pain it brought to her severed pinkie. "I'm trying, you know? I'll keep trying." It was only half a lie. She would try to try and for now that had to be enough. Charlie averted her gaze to look outside. It was a poorly constructed excuse but there was a heat of shame igniting at the openness she had shown with Jude. Charlie stood from the chair. "I should head back before it's dark out." Hands shoved in her pocket Charlie looked at Jude, paused, and then added, "thanks for this and um..." A nod in Shaw's general direction. "They'll be fine. I'll come back tomorrow afternoon, I think you'll need a bit more than two hands for this rubble. See you then, Jude."

It was best not to count the days or how things altered. Jude kicked her legs under the table, felt the ache of her unoccupied hands. She did not dwell long on how this once would have been impossible: to meet another’s eyes, to share their griefs, to hold them for a while. At all. Her home had once creaked with her seclusion only, the purpose of a kept silence. It groaned now with the bodies and the noise. A moment of rupture, close to death, brushed with grief—life that wheezed after. These hours stretched now, black-eyed and certain.  “No.” If there was reassurance, it did not know its mould; it came without ease of being soothing, peaceful or malleable. That was learned. It was supposed to have been. Comfort imitated from love given when small and unsure of the world, when someone protected and guided, teaching arms how to be open and hands to be gentle. It had not been seen or passed on to Jude. She had to feel her way around without flashlight. The voice, steeled and empty of wavering, could only hope to convince of its own beliefs. “They did it. Not you.” Their claws, Their slaughter. Charlie had blamed herself for the blood still. It was the human left in them that made them so mournful, the monsters unfeeling. There was little choice in their existence, a truth that could not always be ingested. “No, you don’t, but you can choose what it means—” How any of them would be remembered, lost to the world, only known by each other now. Until the day so bloodied and inevitable. Not if but when. She had made sure she would not be remembered herself. Earlier. “Would he want this? You torturing yourself?” What an infliction it was. Love.   Jude nodded and chewed at her cheek, allowed the knee-jerk smile. Approved even if it quivered with somnolence. She hummed then. “Smart kid.” Not quite youthful but too young, too small. Affection that would not linger, untenable on the rancher’s face. She let it fall away. “There is no escape. No more with that.” A statement of nothing more than fact, accepted and not stayed on. Their lives could not quite be lived. Unforgivable once, to not have been anything, shared fate now. “So just—” Let go, let go. It was the clinging that made it ruin, rather than just wound. How she did not know; it would not be advice that would be given but understanding. It had been a condition of existence once, to escape it. “Just rest. Stop hurting yourself.” Rest. In some hole in the earth where it was quiet and safe. Someplace warmer. 

[skyguywrites]

❗️= old or important threads/threads to prioritise. bold = ship thread. italics = important/defining plot.

dan owes.

rory/bonnie1 - 20 march // 4 notes // opp: michaela

wardo/louis5 (mini) - 1 april // 6 notes // opp: jenny

joey/micah1 - 10 april // 5 notes // opp: michaela

bradley/persephone2 - 10 april // 5 notes // opp: michaela

max/ivy3 - 11 april // 7 notes // opp: michaela

eli/annie3 - 11 april // 10 notes // opp: michaela

jen owes.

❗️harlow/rafferty1 - 17 oct // 10 notes // opp: danielle

chess/ivy3 - 10 nov // 4 notes // opp: michaela

matthias/colin4 (mini) - 5 jan // 5 notes // opp: michaela

❗️harlow/raff/maverick1 - 6 jan // 6 notes // opp: danielle & michaela

❗️harlow/marley2 - 9 jan // 6 notes // opp: danielle

❗️louis/wardo4 - 9 jan // 5 notes // opp: danielle

❗️maggie/amelia1 - 20 march // 6 notes // opp: michaela

noah/poppy3 - 30 march // 4 notes // opp: michaela

ariadne/billy1 (mini) - 2 feb // 4 notes // opp: michaela

❗️noah/flynn1 - 9 april // 5 notes // opp: michaela

matthas/colin3 (flashback, mini) - 10 april // 8 notes // opp: michaela

matthias/simon1 - 10 april // 4 notes // opp: danielle

jax/dante2 - 10 april // 5 notes // opp: danielle

michaela owes.

valentina/henry1 - 3 march // 2 notes // opp: danielle

valentina/ariadne1 (mini) - 8 march // 4 notes // opp: jenny

❗️diego/henry3 - 9 march // 10 notes // opp: danielle

kian/ezra2 (mini) - 10 march // 6 notes // opp: danielle

théo/lando1 - 10 march // 5 notes // opp: danielle

diego/henry4 - 13 march // 5 notes // opp: danielle

amira/ripley1 - 13 march // 6 notes // opp: danielle

valentina/teddy1 - 16 march // 4 notes // opp: danielle

colin/teddy1 - 31 march // 6 notes // opp: danielle

théo/jax1 (mini) - 31 march // 3 notes // opp: jenny

marcus/maggie1 (mini) - 31 march // 4 notes // opp: jenny

billy/simon3 (mini) - 3 april // 3 notes // opp: danielle

amira/killian4 - 3 april // 5 notes // opp: jenny

poppy/marley1 - 7 april // 5 notes // opp: danielle

olly/teddy1 - 10 april // 4 notes // opp: danielle

marcus/dante1 - 10 april // 5 notes // opp: danielle

elodie/heath1 - 10 april // 4 notes // opp: danielle

théo/keeley1 - 11 april // 6 notes // opp: danielle

olly/jude1 - 11 april // 5 notes // opp: danielle

amelia/teddy1 - 11 april // 3 notes // opp: danielle

amelia/ripley1 - 11 april // 5 notes // opp: danielle

jessie/marley2 - 11 april // 4 notes // opp: danielle

❗️ maverick/rafferty2 - 11 april // 9 notes // opp: danielle

billy/simon2 - 11 april // 6 notes // opp: danielle

ARCHIVED.

amira/joey1. | amira/killian1. amira/killian2. amira/killian3. annie/eli1. annie/eli2. | annie/jax1.

ariadne/jasper1.

billy/simon1.

bradley/persephone1.

charlie/elodie1. | charlie/marcus1. charlie/persephone1.

chess/diego1. | chess/henry1. chess/ivy1. chess/ivy2. | chess/joey1. | chess/matty1. chess/matty2.

colin/matthias1. colin/matthias2.

dante/jax1.

diego/henry1. diego/henry2. diego/henry3.

eli/matty1.

flynn/rae1. | flynn/wardo1.

harlow/ivy1. | harlow/marley1. | harlow/maverick1.

henry/ivy1. | henry/poppy1.

ivy/louis1. ivy/louis2. ivy/louis3. | ivy/max1. ivy/max2. | ivy/raff1. | ivy/wardo1.

jax/matty1.

jess/marley1.

joey/scotty1.

kian/ezra1. | kian/louis1.

killian/matty1.

louis/max1. | louis/scotty1. | louis/wardo1. louis/wardo2. louis/wardo3.

mav/raff1. | mav/wardo1.

noah/poppy1. noah/poppy2.

persephone/jax1. persephone/jax2. | persephone/ripley1.

poppy/wardo1.

[jollytalkerollywalker]

Olly gasped softly as Jude’s lips closed around his thumb, a pathetic whimper spilling from his lips. He blushed; eyes wide as he giggled at his own actions. He hadn’t intended on making that sound at any point on their hike, especially not when Teddy would be waiting for him over brunch later today. But he’d always had a crush on Jude, innocent and one sided as it was, and the sensation that filled his stomach was unrelenting, his boxers tightening in his shorts as he stared across at his friends. His lips were plump and pink, perfectly kissable and had been the subject of many of Olly’s daydreams. He was embarrassed, ashamed even, but he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t been in the shower thinking about those lips wrapped around something else once or twice. 

Clearing his throat, Olly crinkled his nose and allowed himself another, breathless laugh as he tugged his thumb free, swiping it across Jude’s jaw instead. Saliva swept across the other man’s stubble and Olly happily leaned in and pressed a chaste kiss to the very same spot, absently wondering if, in some circles, this would count as kissing by proxy. He shouldn’t think so, even if his own spittle was now mingled with Jude’s somewhere down the line. 

With his free hand, Olly lifted his phone up and swiped the camera open before switching it to selfie mode. If he focused on getting a cute photo, maybe he wouldn’t think too hard about how comfortable it felt to be sprawled against Jude’s lap like this, nor would he focus on the way that the other man’s hand seemed to be edging its way up his inner thigh, tickling the skin and causing a burning heat to unfurl in the pit of Olly’s stomach. As Jude’s fingers pushed past the hem of his shorts, he released another nervous, shaky giggle, breath catching in the back of his throat. 

“You’re always sexy,” he muttered, suddenly at a loss for words. 

His eyes were wide as he stared into the camera, cheeks a damning shade of pink as his best friend graced him with a wink. His thumb tapped the screen to snap the photo just in time, as Olly suddenly found himself scrambling from Jude’s lap and clumsily shoving the phone back into the pocket of his shorts. The weight between his legs seemed to be growing thicker under the fleeting touch of the other man, and the last thing Olly needed was for the paramedic to catch sight of his steadily growing boner and tell Olly’s boyfriend. 

“Woohooo! Best picture ever, yippee!!!” Olly exclaimed without actually looking at it, frantically trying to inject some of his usual enthusiasm into his tone as he leapt backwards onto the grassy bank. 

As his bottom hit the ground, he leaned back to nonchalantly rest against his elbows, only to let out a startled yelp as a sharp pain seared through his arm. Glancing behind him, he caught sight of a mess of beer bottles and cans, no doubt carelessly littered against the muddy terrain by some late-night hikers. He hissed as he caught sight of blood bubbling at the edge of his skin – the wound was out of his sight, just above his elbow, but a fresh streak of blood was spiraling around his forearm and spilling into his lap. 

“Aw, heck! Jude, baby, I’m bleeding,” he gasped, lips puckering into a sad little pout. 

“Well, we have a sunset,” Jude said, gesturing to where the sorbet sky was streaked pink-and-orange, silhouetting the hills around them. “And we’ve got hot men. We’re two for two.”

He’d always attest to being the hottest in the room at any given moment. When people bought the hospital’s shirtless calendars every year, they weren’t doing it for Bryan from orthopedics. Sure, he could set a bone alright, but Jude knew that his spread for Mr April had tended to plenty of other bones better than Bryan could ever dream of. As much as he prided himself on his own looks though, he’d give Olly credit where credit was due. His sister’s friend was hot, in a purely objective way. He had that cute, fluffy-haired, innocent thing going on about him, but Jude knew he was packing muscle under that shirt of his. And who didn’t love a guy who could fix up an adorable animal? He’d allow Olly to share the title of ‘hot man’ on their little sunset hike.

He huffed out a laugh when he heard the way Olly reacted to his teeth grazing his jaw. The soft whimper he emitted wasn’t lost on him, the noise hitting him right in the pit of his stomach in a way that satisfied him completely. Olly might not want to rile Teddy up, but he was doing nothing to stop himself from facing the same fate.

Feeling Olly’s thumb against his lower lip, Jude smirked, casting a knowing look at the other man. Without a word, Jude’s lips closed around the other man’s thumb, taking it in his mouth and gently sucking on it, teeth nipping it gently.

Look, he wasn’t an idiot. He knew the effect that he had on Olly. Why wouldn’t he? If he couldn’t turn on a gay man then he was severely underestimating his own attractiveness, and that would just never do. Growing up, he’d never been the smart one or the funny one. He’d been the hot one, and that had suited him just fine. So people liked him for his looks - was that a crime? He’d never found reason to complain about it and even though he’d settled down with Lacey (for the time being), he couldn’t deny that there was a certain thrill that shot through him whenever he managed to successfully fluster Olly.

Maybe he just liked getting one-up on Teddy. He’d always been competitive - his time on the bench during his lacrosse days when he’d taken yet another player out was testament to that - so maybe he could boil this snide, conniving part of him down to just wanting to show the swimmer, who quite frankly had never made any sort of effort to talk to him, that he wasn’t so easily usurped as the number one man in Olly Walker’s life.

“Fine, fine. We’ll take a selfie,” he said, his hand resting on Olly’s leg as soon as it overlapped with his.

Cheekily, he let his hand inch further up Olly’s thigh, fingers skirting underneath the hem of his shorts. He turned his head to the side, giving the man a quick wink.

“Go on then, take the photo,” he said. “While I’m still sexy.”

[jollytalkerollywalker]

Olly hummed in delight as he felt the weight of Jude’s hand in his own, their fingers tangling together, a practically perfect fit. He felt cozy and warm, the soft glow of the rising sun casting a pretty hue over the two of them. He wondered if now would be a bad time to pull his phone out and snap a quick picture, his face tucked into the crook of Jude’s neck, his hair tickling the other man’s stubble. But maybe that would be too romantic. 

“Nuhuh, not everything. Sunsets are romantic, though,” Olly insisted, still daydreaming about how lovely they must look. “Sunsets and hot men, that is.” 

He giggled at his own words, positively certain that Jude would delight in the compliment. He always seemed to preen under Olly’s words of encouragement, always welcoming words of affirmation and a smattering of kisses all over his face. Olly remembered just last week when Jude had told him about an emergency he’d handled at work. He’d been so proud of his best friend he’d crawled into his lap, legs wrapped firmly around his waist, and kissed his cheeks all over until the two had eventually toppled onto the sofa in a messy tangle of limbs, Jude’s hand gripping his thigh to steady him. He’d erupted into a fit of giggles until he’d worn himself out and dozed off against the blond’s chest, perfectly content to be with his most favourite person. 

“Oh, you know,” he laughed, shaking his head. Jude was looking at him now, their noses brushing as he wiggled his eyebrows, a cheeky smile on his face. 

Olly’s crush on his best friend was no secret, not by any means, but it wasn’t something he’d spoken too openly with Teddy about. Not that he was ashamed or embarrassed, not by any means! Nothing was going on between them and Jude was as straight as a ruler – and not the floppy kind that you’d get at school that Marianne always likened him to – so there really was no competition, but he didn’t want Teddy to think he had anything to worry about. Jude had a girlfriend, and Olly just thought he was handsome. He could still be his friend and accept him as simply that. Jude could be the love of his life in the same way that Kim was Ezra’s! It was exactly the same thing. 

Olly gasped, then, as he felt Jude’s teeth graze his jaw, a flush of warmth flooding down his thighs and between his legs. His cheeks burned suddenly, the sensation causing his stomach to flip. Okay, so maybe Ezra was never at the risk of a boner whenever Kim kissed his cheek, but it was really no big deal. 

Emitting a soft whimper in response, Olly lifted a hand to cup Jude’s cheek, intending to playfully bat him away, when the other man’s words finally caught up with him. While he definitely had no intentions of riling Teddy up – certainly not when he, himself, was so riled up in entirely different ways – the other man had vocalised the very thing he’d been thinking about. 

Pausing for thought, he swiped his thumb absently over Jude’s lower lip, dipping the pad into the other man’s mouth teasingly, practically inviting him in for another nip. 

“We are not riling up Teddy because that’s mean,” Olly laughed, shaking his head fondly at his gorgeous friend. Dipping his head to side, he fluttered his lashes and shuffled in closer, lifting one leg as he draped it carefully over Jude’s lap – careful not to let the man catch a glimpse of the growing bulge beneath his shorts – and pressed another lazy kiss to his cheek. “But can we please take a selfie? You look really sexy in this lighting.” 

At first, Jude had been glad that Marianne couldn’t take the day off work to join them on their hike. There was nothing that put a downer on his day more than the sourpuss expression his sister wore when she decided he was flirting with Olly. Far more possessive of her friend than she needed to be, Jude had long since given up arguing that he wasn’t flirting with Olly. He was straight, and Olly liked the attention. It was harmless.

Still, as he whined for them to take a break and sat down heavily on the ground, leaves crunching underneath his ass, he began to realise it might have been better if Marianne had joined them. At least if he spent the majority of his time arguing with his sister, it would give him something to do. For the past fifteen minutes, he’d been sitting down, loudly huffing and kicking at the dead leaves that surrounded him while Olly giggled away at something on his phone. Probably something to do with that swimmer of his that he’d been seeing.

“He’s lovely!” Marianne had told Olly, nodding approvingly when the other man had shown them photos of his new flame. Jude had only raised an eyebrow when presented with the shirtless image of Teddy - stupid name, for one - holding a puppy. 

“That’s the kind of six pack he’s working with and I’m meant to believe he’s an Olympian?” he’d said, forcing the words out. He’d allowed his eyes to trace the deep cut of muscle carved into Teddy’s abdomen and then fucked off to spend the rest of the afternoon in the gym.

The water he’d dipped his feet into was now becoming uncomfortably icy, but he was sure it was numbing his blisters. Plus, he was a decent enough EMT to know that he wasn’t even close to frostbite being a danger so he left them where they were, flicking the water with his toes and wrinkling his nose. 

“Teddy would love this, Teddy just loooooves the water, he’s soooo - what?,” he murmured to himself in a high-pitched mimicry of Olly’s voice, up until the other man came and sat down next to him.

His eyes dipped down to Olly’s open palm, knowing there would already be an expectant look on his face. Jude made a show of rolling his eyes but eventually picked up his own hand to place it in Olly’s, the corner of his mouth tugging upwards as he did so.

“You think everything’s romantic,” he countered, pretty sure that Olly could find romance in the arrangement of someone’s sock drawer. Jude wasn’t so easily convinced. What was romance meant to be anyway? His supposed romantic encounters with Lacey were never coloured in any hue that differed from every other fragment of his life. They were just… there, in amongst the regular back-and-forth of his job and his family and friends. Biscus was probably what Jude’s mind went to when he thought of something colourful in his life, and he desperately wished that he’d argued his case and brought his dog along. But it was Lacey’s time of the month and apparently if Jude wasn’t going to stick around to cuddle her during it, then his labrador was the next best thing. He’d left that morning with the two of them curled around each other in bed, his heart twisting at the thought of leaving his dog behind and then his gaze shifting to Lacey and realising… he didn’t feel anything more indifferent at the thought of not seeing her again until the evening.

He chuckled when Olly pressed a kiss to his cheek with the addendum that they shouldn’t tell his girlfriend back home about this. Jude had to agree. Lacey, for reasons beyond Jude’s comprehension, always got pissy when he brought up Olly. And who knows what kind of fit she’d pitch if she knew how affectionate the other man was with her boyfriend.

“What wrong impression is that?” Jude said, raising an eyebrow when Olly brought Teddy up. Jude had no reason to care what Olly’s swimmer boyfriend thought about the two of them. But apparently it was important to Olly that they don’t tell him about… whatever this was. 

Jude couldn’t lie; it gave him a sick sense of satisfaction to think he could easily make Teddy jealous. 

“You sure you don’t want to send him a selfie of us to rile him up?” he teased, leaning forward to lightly and playfully bite the underside of Olly’s jaw.

[charliexclayton]

It couldn't be your fault. There had been a lot of sleepless night spent replaying Conor's final moments in that hunter's shed; the slamming of the door in her face, the thudding of his body against the door as their jagged claws slid through him like a knife through butter. If she closed her eyes now she could vividly hear the layered screaming of her name which all put together sounded so so much like Conor's voice. Their manipulation had caused this, but it had been her fear of being burned alive that had been the focus of their attack. She could have fought harder to be the one to die, to throw herself upon the selfless blade of sacrifice. Sometimes she thought how death might have been kinder than the hell that Conor's haunting brought to her life.

"What difference does it make?" she asked, voice wavering and thick. Her lips felt dry. "If it wasn't for me, he would still be here. But it wasn't for him, I wouldn't be." Brows furrowed, she licked her lips. "Do you think we get a choice in how we die?" Only cowards chose to end their own life, but could she, when the time came, travel a path that allowed her to go quietly, gently, held in the warmth of someone she loved? She sighed, the tenseness in her shoulder heavy. Her hand throbbed, a reminder of what it was like when a choice was made, forced by the threads of this place. A humourless smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. It was an impossible ask for Charlie to do anything but give hell back to this place that had molded it from her. At Jude's touch, Charlie met her eyes and promised, "I'll make this place suffer."

She was grateful when the rancher pulled her hand away, felt it did nothing but add to the knot in her throat and the tears streaking down the dirt of her face. It was too late to heed Jude's warning, the giving in committed days ago when the only thing that allowed her to sleep without fearing Reyna coming in or Conor forcing the removal of another digit was the thick heavy feeling of eyelids drooping from excessive alcohol consumption. Is there? She wanted to ask. "What if I already have? I don't know how to... how to stop this otherwise." A gesture towards her head, a quiet admittance of guilt over losing control, of fear driving her every move. "I can't escape myself this place otherwise."

The peel of paper against glass struck in the still. Only a crackle of fire and the chorus of mud beyond it. It threatened to divert Jude, scatter the thoughts her weary mind could just cling to. She remembered how her mother’s hands shook too. How they only touched when she had to guide the unfocused limbs. How love and care had been her burdens, once, unreturned and noxious. A mind lost long ago or continually tortured, the woman had often cried at shadows. She listened now, to Charlie, her ear often the best she could offer. The presence that they both lacked and longed for, perhaps, convalescing in the other room. Her embodied consciousness that would know better words, a tender heart more qualified at consolation. 

Conor. A name she must have known, once, a face she couldn’t recall among the departed. So many of them now, it had never made sense to hold them all. They would not find salvation in the remembering, nothing would be spared. “Charlie, that—” Jude blinked. “It couldn’t be your fault.” There was no blame to be harboured for the inevitably of it. Even as she reproached herself now, for the roof that hung like a broken limb. Survival was only ever granted, viciously taken away just the same. “I don’t think about Them at all.” Honesty, rarely offered. If she had thought about the beasts, it had previously only been in the contemplation of when they might meet. When she would decide not to fight anymore. Now, something that seethed beneath. In the depths of her, still, even as she had long ago turned from the violence born of smothered wrath. If the harm had been Their doing, the fear would not come from her. “If they want you, kid, make it hell.” Do not go gently. Gaze that caught the tears in Charlie’s eyes, she succumbed—finally covered a hand that shook with the steadiness of her own. 

Jude withdrew her hand after a moment, to wipe at her own face knowing that nothing would be out of place. She had never known how to cry. “And don’t give in to this—” She gestured at the bottle, a knowing glance. The life she had wasted on nothing, the shortness of release taken from liquor and bodies. How her only victory had been not descending into something more. Scarcely avoided the inherited appetite for complete destruction. “Okay? It doesn’t make anything better, it—” She shook her head, thought of the quiet way life had finally been lived. Cautiously, pressed against another’s skin. “There’s more to whatever life this is than that.”

[charliexclayton]

The stutter of her heart, caused by the uneasy kindness offered her way. A kindness and care hidden behind the facade of sarcasm and casualness that Charlie was quickly learning to associate with Jude. She nodded in response, didn't trust herself to communicate without being dishonest. Even now, as she stared at Jude, she thought of the many ways her presence here would be disastrous if her mind was allowed to get the better of her again. They were all linked in this hurt together, but Charlie was the cause of her own undoing. Where she had permitted herself to love, and care, and think of these feelings, the antonym of those emotions had allowed themselves to root in her mind. They were wrapping themselves now around everything she did, around everything she dared to let herself think she could help.

Another drink, it was all she could do to steady the trembling of her hand. How much could she tell Jude? It was a difficult balance of sharing fears and coming undone beyond the point of functioning. Her index finger found the peeling label of the bottle. She focused on it pointedly, began slowly peeling it back as though making eye contact with Jude as she spoke would be the end of her composure. "I see things," she started quietly, "things that aren't here. People that aren't here." She ripped the label off easily and began crumpling it up in her hand as she continued, emboldened now by the release of thoughts long kept hidden.

"A few months ago a guard died, I'm not sure if you knew him. His name was Conor." A swallow, throat drying despite the beer. "He died because of me and now I see him all the time. And he says things and I— Hmm. I have to wonder how this place knows things about myself I've never shared, how I think it knows me more than I do I—" She looked at Jude then, well aware that she was well into the oversharing territory. "Have you noticed they don't eat us? I think they try to break us. I think this place likes it when we hurt and I can't—" An inhale, the tears were welling up behind her eyes now. "I can't do anything but hurt. That's why this is all happening you see? It wants to take away the things we care about until all that's left is the hurt."

The nod was short, confirmation enough. “Good.” Jude remained for a moment, to cast her eye over Charlie with seasoned wariness. To pick out, perhaps, if she was being deceived or placated—knowing well the concealment of harm for another’s sake. The doubt remained but she let the thought go, abandoned to the part of her mind that nagged in moments of stillness rather than demanded anything. 

It was disregarded, Charlie’s assertions. Jude knew no effortlessly given gentle words or comforting touch, her heart came in uneasy spills. She’d tried to stop it bleeding. Her care was an offering of silent hospitality, something given freely while asking only not to be looked at or considered in return. “Don’t need any help.” She rolled her shoulders, offered some small curve of her mouth as a courtesy. Her home still shattered and splintered, the work it demanded that she would take to herself in time. “Just—” Think about it. “No roof now so the door is sort of always open.” Trampled under slat and sky, her humour lacked. It would hold, for now, still endangered by any shift of the earth. 

“It’s…” Jude started but found no end. She had not considered it much. Years ago, when she had pulled herself up from the dirt after days staggered in haze, someone had insisted on informing her of the torment that lay in wait. It had been wordlessly and swiftly that she had adapted to it. A new hell taken in stride, a frittered life already forgotten. The entrapment of it had riled her most, the fixation to leave only broken by the first sight of a doctor in the window, of smoke lost in scattered sunlight. It had been noted as pointed, the way that something had come to feast on the weight of all the unspoken things between lovers. To suffocate the tormenting happiness—unveiled it to be as brief and fragile as it had been feared to be. “Wants you?” A worn brow tightened, a question asked to clarify something already half-understood. She tucked her hair behind her ear, a momentary diversion from the need to reach for bottle or hand. “This place is,” She shook her head, exhaled, “fucked, you’re hurt now, I know but you’ll be okay too.” An avowal she had no authority to give, another question unasked: won’t you? 

[charliexclayton]

Jude's question acknowledged in the lack of name what a loss Shaw's absence was to the clinic. Would Charlie attend? The answer was in the negative, though it was more complex than that. How could she admit that Shaw's absence had inadvertently been cause for her injury. That had Shaw not been injured from the storm and in their full function as doctor, Charlie would have gone to see them for the frostbite on her pinkie. Maybe, just maybe, Shaw would have been able to slice through the insanity in Charlie's mind, bring reason to light in the dark of madness. It was easier to lie, even if brought about a sinking feeling in her stomach in doing it to Jude. "Yeah, I will."

She watched as Jude left the table, happy to follow the woman's lead in abandoning the food in front of her. It was bound to be followed by regret later, when she was alone and cold and her stomach rumbled for substance. But everything about this place, this town, made it hard to build an appetite. The only thing that Charlie had the appetite for was the contents of the bottle that Jude brought back. It was a new companion, one she had only been acquainted with in recent years. People came, people died, but alcohol never faltered in its ability to make Charlie forget the first two.

A sip as Jude spoke, offered a kindness Charlie felt unworthy of receiving. Already she felt the creeping doubt that she was overstaying her welcome. Why should she be cared for when she felt beyond saving? Surely, Jude had better things to do than babysit a ghost. In the adjacent room laid Shaw, needing care, needing attention. "I'd hate to be a nuisance, and I'm really not sure I could be of any help around here right now." Honesty. A simpler route to carve than lying. "Already, you've done enough. I'm really sorry, for overstepping." She took another gulp and then met Jude's eyes. "I just didn't know where else to go or.. or what else to do." Her fingers played with the peeling label from the bottle. "Do you ever feel like... Hmm." She paused, tried again. "I think this place is sentient, and it wants me."

“You’ll go to the clinic?” To check over the work of untrained hands. A mind that now ran over names and faces, the medics that tended to the town. Anyone who could make for sounder work. Jude could not pick anything out of them now. Her attention had never been for them, mere blurs among linoleum and antiseptic—her own presence only ever singular in the place, it had all given way to the light. 

Jude nodded, a muted gesture as the lump in her throat was threatened with its dislodge. There would be something in the ranch to drink. Inevitably. Stashed moonshine or bottled amber liquid that could be remembered as what it hoped to imitate. Collecting dust in the weeks, perhaps months, she had not reached for them. She excused herself from the table, abandoned the soup half-eaten and cooling in the air. Nothing was left untouched by the winter that skulked under gaps in doorways and worn hollows in the wood. Warmth had fleeted overnight.

The bounty was returned only moments later, quickness from the rancher who knew every inch of her long undisturbed residence. Two bottles delivered to the table with a heavy clunk against incised surface. Opened with a swift slip of a tool, eaten by rust and always clipped to the loop of Jude’s trousers. She sat back down, let her eyes pause on the bottle of distilled diversion. She had sunk into it enough, reached for it more. Her fingers jolted and stretched, then, but remained in their place. Half punishment, to remain so lucid when everything burnt, half dedication to her cause—to carry them through the wreckage. Remain steady and unflinching as she was ripped apart. 

There was a kick of something when Jude met Charlie’s eye, a twist in the depths of her stomach. It was soon turned away from. She felt like she ought to warn her that it would not help. That the liquor and whatever balm it felt like would not soothe for long. It could only be a temporary, a small alleviation from the world's edge. Too much like a lecture, she let it die. An untenable tenderness. “You can sleep here, if—” Sudden, clumsy. An offer mostly born of practicality, thoughts of a door broken by air. She had always preferred isolation to the company of others, had chosen to be alone even here. Before. “You know, when you need to.” Her room upstairs now dust and splinters, Shaw confined to the only other bed, it was no more than an offer of the sofa—somewhere to rest. 

[charliexclayton]

Her name, spoken like it would ground her back to the now. It worked if only to pull her out of her thoughts, spiralling on that night at the diner where the back of her head had hit the ground, Reyna’s fist had collided with her face, the cold blade of a cleaver had been held to her throat. She often thought it would have been easier for everyone if Reyna had managed to be successful. Would Jude have mourned her? Would Shaw? It was easy here to forget to mourn, to grieve, the rapidity in which people came, died, then vanished from memory. A repetitious cycle that numbed a person’s ability to care for others. Charlie was all care. All care and all hurt.

A swallow, the soup no longer tasting much like anything. She pushed her bowl away and brought her injured hand down into her lap, eyes falling to meet it with regret. “Roux…” she started, barely audible. Regaining her voice, she tried again. “Roux looked at it.” Hardly a doctor, but someone who could be trusted even if her hands were used to tearing things apart rather than putting them back together. “She sewed it back together, I think. And I used some glue for the back of my head.” 

She looked up at Jude, properly for the first time since she’d gotten here, the way a person usually did when they were making conversation with a friend. But will I? Charlie wanted to ask, selfishly. If the tree hadn’t fallen on Shaw then perhaps none of this would have happened. Charlie would have gone to Shaw for an amputation where it required none and Shaw would have cured the ailment of her mind. Instead wood had splintered into the whole town when it had fallen on Shaw. It was poisoning the town now. This tree. This storm. The cold. They would never be warm again.

“They’ll get better,” she repeated, like the two of them speaking would make it so. Charlie rubbed at her tired face with her uninjured hand, exhaustion evident but sleep less than forthcoming. “I hate to ask but is there any chance you have something to drink, I think we could both use one.”

“Reyna?” Jude blinked, her temple creased. A deluge of faces and names, most of them forgettable. Many now graves. A solitary memory pulled out, a moment of imitation coffee, a grey sky hung above an open field. Some time, not long ago, weeks, maybe—the lifetime that had passed since. “Cow woman.” She muttered. The scene of a person with her arms given to embrace to an animal, a splinter that had lodged into Jude under the overcast. The almost tenderness of it, how quickly she had turned away from it. The same hands seeking comfort, now hungry for the slaughter. Was it just a matter of time that stood between them all and barbarity? Humans broke apart at different paces. Merely the consequence of years trapped, then, to become the monsters in the night. How long for them? Five years, nine—certainly more than fifteen. 

“Charlie.” Rarely offered sobriety. Days too raw to give to anything else. Jude pushed the bowl away. She looked at their hands, every stretch of limb not concealed. The injury was only examined across the table, even as her own hands twitched. Untrained comfort withheld. “Has—” No, not Shaw. Not now. They had bled enough. Given more than sufficient to them all, their healing. They should rest still. Until the snow had melted, until the roof was patched. When something could be kept. “Has someone looked at it?” The emptiness of something now gone. 

Jude released a held breath and shook her head. Not for herself. The hunger in her stomach remained, neglected and unfed. “They’ll get better.” Not quite a dismissal of apology or an attempt at reassurance—a declaration a person with an inch more conviction could make a prayer of.

[charliexclayton]

A sigh of relief crossed her lips. Perhaps she had stupidly convinced herself that things would go back to normal once the radio station was back up and running as her residence but that was the only thing that she could hold onto right now, normality filtering through her fingers more and more every day. "Thank you," she mumbled before bringing up a spoonful of soup.

No need to curl up and die. Charlie wanted to question why. Were they not worthy of choosing when they could give up and surrender to death? After this storm did death not hammer at their door, warm and gentle against the violent cold? Still, here with Jude things felt different. They were moonlighting as a family, but were two puzzle pieces jammed together uncomfortably.

At Jude's questions, Charlie felt herself freeze. Tried, and failed, to keep the memories of that night away. It tore through her mind with such intensity that she almost vomited the little bit of soup that had warmed her stomach. "Reyna," she uttered, like speaking the name reopened her wounds. Her head spun and Charlie dropped her spoon in the bowl. "Not all of it. I... the pinkie was me but she— ." A sharp unsteady intake. "I'm sorry. I don't... fuck, You have enough going on."

Jude nodded. The destruction had been extensive, the days ahead of them all uncertain. Buildings left strewn across the paths like roadkill, the residents barely spared. Not that she had considered much of it at all. Not beyond what had mattered. Who mattered. Her regard had remained only there, quiet still, even in its fierceness. “Not a problem.” She stated, rallied by some attempt at focus. To be where she was, rather than where she longed to be. “I’ll fix it tomorrow.”

Sorry. A wince. The spoon wielded like a knife between fingers, jabbed into the bowl, then, if only to remain looking down. Utterance had been avoided, it wouldn’t ease things. Jude was incensed, she supposed, that the incursion had touched Shaw. Vengeful. There weren’t words she knew yet that would explain it, no desire to convey it all. How it ached. To have not been able to protect them. How her hands had shaken with the discovery of loss. She pushed away all thoughts of air and splinters, it was difficult to wage wars with the sky. “It’s winter, kid, time to hibernate.” A spoonful of soup finally granted entry to a tighted mouth, the heat almost too much to keep down. Too present and living, she swallowed the nausea. “No need to curl up and die.”

The lips wavered, half thought, half frown. Jude had never made a habit of vocalising her philosophies. The space between mind and mouth was vast—treacherous. She would not torture herself about being stuck, the being changed. The monstrosities would prevail. Make itself known in every dark corner, every brief second of barely captured light. No further rumination required.

Bread torn at with blunt fingernails, eaten. Dry. Jude devoured it, Charlie’s questions repeated in her mind. “Who?” A tone that concealed any concern, it was barely affection. The hands had been too worn, shaped by labour and brutality. Predisposed only to push away. A simple and fierce thing, then, the loyalty one left-behind kid could have for another. Both kicked the same, willing to down their fists just momentarily. To let something rest. The denial that she had changed at all. “They did this to you?” At last, she gestured to the face, the wounds. Acknowledged the torment.

[charliexclayton]

Despite the protest of hunger from her stomach earlier, Charlie did not rush to eat the warm food in front of her. Everything felt... wrong. Being opposite of Jude, while Shaw's broken body laid in the room next to them, with her own injuries demanding the attention of being felt incessantly. She scooped soup out with the spoon, then tilted it to watch it drip back into the bowl. The motion was repeated a few times before finally brought a spoonful up to her mouth. Tangy flavors hit her tongue accompanied by a pleasant heat that she was sure Goldilocks would describe as just right. The relief of a warm meal on a cold day complimented the hope that grew in Charlie that her life may return to a sense of normalcy once the door to the radio station was fixed.

She swallowed and nodded at the same time, eyes landing on Jude in wordless gratitude. At the rancher's next words she was forced to renew focus on her bowl of soup, a knot a thick as a fist making an appearance in the pit of her stomach. One that she attempted to dissolve by shovelling three more spoonsful of soup down the hatch.

"A lot of things happened in the storm," she muttered, lowering her eyes to stare at her bandaged hand sitting in her lap. "But yeah, the wind blew it in, I think. Not um... not quite the tree here, I guess. Sorry." Charlie wrapped a fist around the handle of the spoon until her knuckles turned white and dug the hilt into the table. It was an attempt to not let the events of a few nights ago resurface. But that was like trying to run rope through the eye of a needle.

"Do you think there's a way for this place not to change who you are? I don't-," Charlie took a sharp breath in, "I don't feel safe here anymore. With myself or... or around others you know? I—hmm. I keep thinking it'll pass but then I think about it and I'm so sick of thinking about it. What would you... what would you do if someone here tried to kill you?"

Jude sat at the table, placed spoons and the bread in the middle without raising her sight. It still seemed too intimate, the act of sharing a meal. As if she had not grown up eating pressed shoulder to shoulder with others. Sat in silent rows, the food often cold—perhaps those meals had been time spent alone too.

The bowl left out for Shaw that made her stomach lurch, the way Charlie sat wordlessly broken opposite her—Jude’s spoon rose from her bowl just to return. It dipped, hovered, the soup uneaten. She had felt sick for days, unable to name her hunger. Unwilling to feed the gnaw of proof that she was still existing, still starving. She had fed Shaw instead. Hoped that the act would at least bring some relief, only to find no such salvation. There was no combination of things yanked from the earth that could undo what had been done. What had been seen.

“Door?” Jude asked, a quirk in her brow. She would have to swallow the incredulity. “Uh, yeah, I can fix that.” No problem at all. She had never hastened to make it known, so much, but the rancher’s hands were boundless. If it were broken, she would mend it. If she did not know how, she would learn. It had helped her once, an aimless child, to take things apart and make them whole again. It had been wires, lumber and machines she understood, not people. It had just never seemed worth boasting—to have found practicality in the wake of being an indecent human.

“Something happened to it, in the storm?” It should have been a simple enough question, Jude did not press for information. It was only that it led to more than had been asked. What had happened to Charlie when the sky had fallen in?

[charliexclayton]

Her feet kept her standing, eyes on the crack of Shaw's door. It was safer outside. Already Charlie found it difficult to pull air in, to keep the darkness around her vision from growing, to not let her knees wobble and collapse. If she went in then the events of the last few weeks would press down on her harder than she could handle. Did she deserve this? To know the suffering of a friend and be unable to even watch? Some things were better off left out of sight, she could (and would) do nothing but think of Shaw but to see her would be Charlie's own undoing.

Without any further words she followed Jude into the kitchen. This was difficult too, the careful way that both of them danced around difficult subjects with practiced affection. "Yeah," Charlie rasped before checking various cupboards until she found two bowls. She hesitated before grabbing a third one out. "You know... In case, um, they want some later," she murmured, mostly to herself. She ladled them both a bowl, the aroma making her stomach growl in betrayal of her hunger. The heat felt nice in the palm of her hands. Charlie wondered, briefly, why she didn't live in a place that allowed her to make more home cooked meals but the rock that settled in her stomach at the domesticity of it all was enough of an answer.

She set the bowls at the table, took a seat, and waited for Jude patiently as the woman cut them bread and grabbed them spoons.

"I could use your help with something, maybe. I don't know. My door-" She swallowed and stirred at her soup nervously, "my door won't close fully, I don't know if you would know how to.. how to fix that?"

If Jude lingered, it was only in a stumble. Feet that tripped over each other and then stilled outside a door. She had been in there enough. Hours every day. Sat next to Shaw while they rested. Yet, she’d still loom outside like she had been forbidden from entering. As if she could not see what lay beyond it. She would enter or eventually leave. Guilt that kept her waiting, care that made her stay. She straightened her spine and waited for now, wanting nothing more for them than to sleep away all memories of the storm.

“Hm?” Jude nodded then, back in the kitchen, not with Shaw clutched to her chest. Not them crying. Not the desperate clawing inside her corpse to finally find the part capable of healing rather than incidental harm. She came back but the blood remained. “Yeah—” She nodded until she remembered to stop. She assumed that Charlie would want to visit Shaw rather than spend time in her company. Didn’t say anything when she did not hear even a creak from the door left ajar.

To work. To hands. Jude moved about the kitchen without elegance. She found no place now for any part of her that was not in that room. Engrossed only in diversion. She thought again of how Charlie had seemed to embrace her without much consideration for the action. How things held tightly seemed only to shatter.

“Soup?” Jude pointed at the hob with a kitchen knife, a question asked without much intent of discovering preferences. She cut slices of bread, thick and generous, something it looked like Charlie needed.