BAPTIZED IN DIRTY WATER

sylvia plath, ‘elm’

buck's the same. isn't that why they're here together now? breathing slow, low, within the dark, startled suddenly when the slant of the tent that they're sharing, the sound, the anxiety that balls up and radiates right off of him. rue's startled awake, groggy, but CONCERNED as she leaned over him, shaking him by a shoulder slick with sweat, his face sticky with it and hair made damp beneath its influence. how his breathing racks more terrified then what nature offers to them in this storm, rue pushing back dyed strands from his face as she pulled him up, up from his seized position, a hand smoothing there down his back. "it's okay! you're safe... you're safe, just... take a moment, okay? buck, you're okay, we're okay, everything..." that shiver within her voice, worry. "h-hold on-" reaching out, tearing open the flap of the tent so that the heat that had pooled and collected in here could be aired out, the sharp sting and scent of pine needles and damp earth instantly flooding through.

the small space is immediately overwhelmed with petrichor air, brisk and stormy as it swept across his sweat slicken skin. of course rue had seen his nightmares before, the way he tossed and turned, or jolted awake with a gasp but this was different, this was one of those dreams that he struggled to pull himself out of even upon waking up. and buck felt a sense of shame in it, like a part of his skin had been peeled away, exposing just how rotten he was beneath it all. this only furthers his panic, breath still ragged and desperate, his stomach turning, a voice - his fathers, booming inside his skull, louder than the thunder rolling across the sky above them. he winces, forcing his feverish gaze back towards rue, one worried look from those warm brown eyes of hers making it almost impossible not to fall apart completely, like she had some sort of way to see right through him and poke around at his insides. buck swallows hard, words falling from him in a shaky and desperate mess. "do you got somethin'? - i'll take anything." he needed to get high - bury his demons in that blanket of numbness that only drugs could give him and if there was anyone who could understand that, it was rue.

⋆˙⟡♡ 𝖘𝖎𝖝  𝖒𝖎𝖓𝖚𝖙𝖊𝖘. six  minutes  is  how  long  it  had  taken  riley  in  the    bathroom  before  she'd  returned  to  the  scene  that  had  unfolded. a  corner  alley  beside  a  greasy  truck  stop  bathroom,      𝒂  𝒔𝒑𝒓𝒂𝒚  𝒐𝒇  𝒄𝒓𝒊𝒎𝒔𝒐𝒏  𝒑𝒂𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈  𝒂  𝒘𝒂𝒍𝒍. "what  the  fuck  happened?"          she  steps  further  inside,        tries  to  toe  around  the  body  of  someone  who'd  met  the  tail  end  of  buck's  wrath. "m'gone  fa'five  fuckin'  minutes  an'  ya  pull  this  shit?"          it's  not  that  she's  not  elated  to  have  something  fresh  to  eat,        it's  that  he  acted  purely  on  impulse. "it's  called  tact,        bucky,      christ      -        ya  need'a  get  some  unless  you're  plannin'  on  endin'  up  on  some  fuckin'  news  headline  as  the  truck  stop  slammer  or  some  shit."        exasperated  and  with  a  growling  stomach,        she  bends  at  the  knees  and  takes  hold  of  the  𝑛𝑜𝑡  𝑠𝑜  𝑑𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑙𝑦  𝑑𝑒𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑒𝑑  between  them,  tugging  him  hard  by  the  arm  of  his  shirt  to  pull  him  deeper  into  the  mouth  of  the  alley. "you  gonna  help  or  not?"