#c van

The cabin was becoming unbearable. Regan used to tolerate it, keeping up a sturdy enough wall between physical location, and the cruelty she imposed on herself in that place. Now all she thought of were the animals and the knives. And now the weapons Jade had filled it with, which felt much the same, even if Jade had a rational use for them (she did, obviously).

The apartment she had once owned by name only was not much better. It was a lie, a prop, her brother leaving an imprint on it. And the last time she’d been here, Van had run away from her, crying and hurt. It had been a failure in many ways, but the fact that she had been the one to slice into Van and not patch her up was the sort of shame that weeks away had done nothing to dissolve. Regan didn’t w– couldn’t go inside. She couldn’t. Van had even been the one to suggest she come over, but she could barely drag herself up the stairs (the state of her back being only the smallest part of the issue). When Regan did force herself up there, she jabbed at the doorbell and backed away like she was diffusing a bomb.

The door opening certainly felt like one going off, impacting against her chest. When the smoke cleared Regan was able to take Van in – she seemed different. Like a wet cadaver. Yes, that was the obvious comparison. Like layers of her skin were slowly sloughing off, drifting and dirtying the water around her as she became increasingly unrecognizable. Van also looked jumpy. That aspect was not particularly cadaver-like. But when was Van not jumpy? It was fine. This would be fine. Van wouldn’t have asked her to come if it wasn’t fine. (Cliodhna asked Regan to come and it was not fine.)

Regan, previously so exemplary at human interactions, had not allowed her adeptness to atrophy. 

“Don’t touch me.” By the look on Van’s face, maybe that was not the thing to say. Regan tried again. “I, uh– my back. You know. Travel.” Vague enough to not be a lie, even if it put a sour taste in her mouth all the same. Did she think Van was too young to know about these things? Instead of cracking that question open she pushed it away. Regan just liked privacy. It was a hobby. “Um, I – it’s good to see you. With my eyeballs. Not your little square. Oh! I saw that I mentioned a banana. I ate the banana because it was going bad.” She was doing great so far – don’t touch me, a lie, and not bringing the gift she mentioned.

“I don’t– can we talk out there?” She had a feeling Van was about to invite her in. “We can even sit on the stairs. Remember the sitting? You liked that, right?”

—

The choice that Van made in going back to Regan’s apartment instead of waiting at Nora’s crypt for her friend to come back from wherever she had ventured off to hadn’t been an easy one to make. It felt better, among the things that Nora left behind, than to go back to the apartment that she and Thea shared for just a short while. It felt tainted, in its own way. She wondered, only briefly, if there was a blood stain on the asphalt outside from where Jade had been stabbed, or if that would’ve been driven over time and time again and left rendered unrecognizable. She wondered, too, if Regan would be able to tell something was off. Probably. Most definitely. She was super observant, as much as Van hated it. 

The apartment was just as she had left it, and after she cleaned the melted mess off of the ground, she waited, and she waited— thumbs pressed against one another, lip tucked between teeth as she stared absentmindedly as shadows of noon danced along the wall. 

When the sound of Regan’s arrival came, she nearly jumped out of her skin. She half expected it to be one of the two banshee twins, come to finish the job. How could you be so stupid, coming back to this place? Van didn’t really know how to answer the question even if she had asked it herself on behalf of them, but it took her a moment longer than she would have liked to finally open the door. 

Regan looked… not great. Exhaustion wrote itself in lines across her face, and Van was almost positive she could map it all out— could piece together exactly why. Nora. Jade. The tar pit that she had mentioned — maybe more, maybe more that she didn’t know. Wynne had said Elias was hurt, right? She didn’t know who Elias really was, only that he and Regan spoke in public online sometimes and seemed close. Maybe that was another line of exhaustion in a different place. 

At Regan’s instruction, Van shrank into herself. She probably wouldn’t have reached out to touch her anyway, for fear that the unspoken boundary from before Regan left to Ireland would implode on itself, but Regan’s words rattled her nonetheless. Maybe it was because Regan was afraid of her? Still? But she was blaming it on travel, and on her back, and though Van could see with her own two eyes that she did look worse for wear, Van couldn’t help but feel like maybe it was somehow her fault. But that would be selfish, wouldn’t it? To center herself after Regan had just come back after a month in Ireland, looking like a shelled out version of herself, but somehow… more lively at the same time. It was a confusing mixture, and Van found herself staring for a beat too long before she nodded at Regan’s suggestion that they sit outside. That was probably better, anyway. 

“I’m starting to like, think that you’re the one that actually likes to do the sitting.” How long was the flight from Ireland? She had looked it up, but she forgot after seeing the prices. The whole no passport thing had really put a wrench in her plans, too. What would she have done if she’d gone? Open up a portal that swallowed them all whole? Would Nora be here with Declan? Would they be on the couch inside, laughing over Mario Kart? Would Regan look less… like that? It was hard not to let her mind wander, so she dug her fingers into her knees as she dropped down on the top step, just next to Regan. “It’s okay if you ate the banana. I don’t think I like bananas a lot anyway.” She hadn’t had time to be disappointed that Regan hadn’t brought her postcards, because her best friend had lost the (presumably) love of her life, and had disappeared in the same breath. There were bigger things to worry about than postcards. 

“Um… so we’re like, sitting now. Do you…” She turned to look at Regan, uncertainty flashing over her features. “My house like, blew up.” The why doubled back, viciously tearing at all reason. “Gas leak. It was like, super crazy.” She let out a laugh. “You pushed your grandma into a tar pit, right? I guess my house was like a tar pit.” 

—

“I have been doing a lot of sitting.” And it was not actually ideal. Regan couldn’t lean back (not that she was a leaner, anyway; relaxation didn’t look good on her). But she would do it for Van. Felix’s advice had not failed her yet. The only thing she’d been doing more than sitting was lying in bed, and that was even worse because her stomach still hurt, too. Also, she couldn’t escape the human simulation program. She was learning from it, though. She’d get back in the (radial) groove of acting like a completely convincing Homo sapiens before anyone could question it.

“It wasn’t a very good banana.” Mostly because the taste reminded her, somehow, of Ireland. “You wouldn’t be able to eat banana bread that has chocolate chips, anyway, and I believe that to be an important ingredient. Or perhaps you would eat it despite your dietary restriction, given your history with cheese sandwiches.” If only a little bit of lactose intolerance was still their biggest issue. Did Van feel the same way? Right before Regan had left, she seemed panicked – especially so – and between that, the mice incident, and Van’s dangerous condition, her sanity was surely being tested. Maybe Regan should have come here with a cheese sandwich. Maybe it would have allowed both of them, even for just a few minutes, to let themselves believe things still were that simple.

She wasn’t sure how she felt about Van being so close to her – mostly, she pushed against her body’s instinct to fling itself away. She already had a track record for hurting Van. The girl seemed far less hesitant, though, and Regan tried to hold onto that without questioning Van’s judgement (even if it often was so questionable).

“Your– what?” Actually, no more time to question judgement. Other things took precedence. The news Van shared roused her more than anything else had all day – anything since she’d talked with Jade – “Is everyone safe?” Regan asked, eyes wide, hands flat and pushing against the step like she was ready to mobilize. This probably happened weeks ago, though. What else had Regan missed? How many others in her life had their homes blow up, or worse, while she’d been away and unable to help? And whose fault was that? “Gas leaks are– they can kill people, easily. Were you inside when it happened? Was anyone else? You weren’t… were you staying there?” She glanced at the door of the apartment, confused. “You had not been to your house in months.”

There was something in the casual way Van brought up what Regan had done – her grandmother, the tar pit, pushing connecting those two things) that made her lungs pulse with alarm. Or maybe that would have happened regardless of tone. The lawn seemed to wilt as it was paved over with a black ocean. Cliodhna’s yowling echoed in her ears, so venomous Regan’s teeth shook. “I don’t want to talk about that,” she said distantly. Maybe it wasn’t Van who couldn’t handle it. “If there is something you need to know about what happened to your friend, I will tell you. But that– I hadn’t had true sleep in days. When I, uh, brought it up. Ireland was… it wasn’t good. I should not have left. Here, I mean. I should not have left here.” Regan fixed her gaze over the black, bubbling lawn. Was that the first time she’d said that so plainly out loud? 

“Tell me… tell me what else is new.” Please. “Have you done, uh, pizza? How is the melting? Where is Thea?” 

—

Van was relieved to have Regan in front of her, speaking in the way that she always had. The only difference was that she wore exhaustion like an overcoat, and there were a bunch of unsaid things raveled up between them. Van couldn’t tell Regan what happened with Jade, or the fact that her house had been destroyed because of a demon-banshee combo. She figured now wasn’t the time, with the way that Regan looked so… fragile. Van felt that was the correct term, given the circumstances. 

“I’d definitely put chocolate chips in it,” Van affirmed with a nod of her head. “Not walnuts though. I don’t like walnuts.” She remembered picking them out of the banana bread she’d buy at the neighboring coffee shops. Half the time, she gave up and would just wash said walnuts down with her choice of drink that day. “But there are like, some things worth hurting yourself over. Lactose intolerance doesn’t own me, you know? I own it. Plus there are like, lactaid pills or whatever.” She knew that Regan hadn’t come over to discuss her lactose intolerance, but it was easier to joke. To make jokes about the house thing, Ireland— but she knew there was a boundary, she just didn’t know when she’d toe too far against the edge of it. 

Van didn’t really know how to answer that question. Jade had gotten stabbed, and the banshees were unaccounted for. Whether or not the demon had escaped or gone back to where it’d come from was another unknown, but Van nodded instead, deciding against truth. “Nobody was inside. I wasn’t inside.” She felt that much obvious given her condition not being one that’d been involved in a house fire. “I was staying here. I heard about it through the news. Imagine like, opening up twitter and finding out that your house went,” Van made a series of poorly drawn out explosion noises, drawing out her hands to convey what had happened to her house. “At first I was like ah man, it definitely has to be jealousy, but I think it was just like, pipes and stuff instead.” She knew exactly what it had been, but Regan was in no state to absorb that information. 

Van sacrificed honesty for the sake of Regan’s sanity, and she was okay with it, she decided. Plus, Regan already looked worried enough. It didn’t seem like Regan was ready to explain what had happened with the whole tar pit thing, and Van knew that pushing it would only cause… what would it cause? Why could neither of them ever address the elephant in the room? Then again, nobody in this town could. Maybe that was why she’d been raised up to be so fragile; so scared. “We don’t have to.” She wanted to, though. Because while it was very hard for Van to hate people, she hated Regan’s grandma. She’d seen what she was capable of before Regan had even gone to Ireland, and now that she was back, it was like Regan was a hollowed out version of herself. There was, however, a different edge to her. 

“Nora.” Her friend’s name tasted raw— a spoken thing to anyone who would listen, but she still felt a certain kind of hurt when it came to her. “She’ll be back.” She forced a smile, and in doing so, forced herself to believe that as the truth. She would hear about what happened in Ireland from Nora. It didn’t feel right to have Regan tell her. 

They were falling back into the same patterns, and part of it felt nice, even if what had happened between them prior to Regan’s departure stuck hard like thumbtacks beneath her feet. “Um, the pizza is like, pizza-ing, obviously. Things are super busy since it’s finals week or whatever, or soon? I don’t know.” She shrugged, feeling a little disinterested in work, but she was brought back around at the topic of Thea. At least Regan hadn’t asked about Jade. It would be obvious something had happened between them, right? “She um, moved out? Something about like, being a bad person or something, I think. She felt bad or whatever, then moved out. So it’s just me.” She jutted a thumb back towards the door. “I used the Ikea gift card you got me, well— not all of it, but some of it. I got a giant croissant, and there’s this shark pillow too. The croissant is also a pillow, by the way.” 

—

The ham child was not Nora. Not to Regan. It hadn’t been Nora who she’d wronged, had it? It was the ham child, or Hamstring, who Nora may well have become. And thinking of her in any other way felt a lot like bleaching the blood from a surface that she had soiled. Maybe the child would be back. Hopefully. If Regan allowed herself hope once more, it would be for this. But she didn’t think Nora would ever return even if the ham child did. And perhaps calling her a child was no longer accurate, either. There was no child who saw someone they loved die in front of them; it was too transformative. “Yes. When she does come back, she’ll need you.” There was nothing more to say, other than what would turn over and over again in her own thoughts at night, like the proverbial body in a grave, her old self disgusted with present actions.

That was a grave she needed to dig herself out of right now so that Van did not fall in. Luckily, there were 205 bones that could accomplish that (the pubis was not welcome). Regan struck the silence with a spade. “When your house exploded, you didn’t happen to find those good bones, did you? And… what do you mean, jealousy?” 

Actually, Van hopped around so quickly, it wasn’t hard for Regan to keep herself busy chasing her. Thea moved out? She didn’t know the mechanics of it all, but Van and Thea seemed rather close, in the manner of ‘associates’. Perhaps not approaching ‘collaborators’ just yet, but… it wasn’t difficult to read the disappointment that fell on Van’s lips, even if it didn’t come out in what she was saying. It also didn’t make a lot of sense. Regan would ask Thea, because not knowing someone well enough to ask something personal had never been an issue holding Regan back from being invasive. Between her demanding tone and ability to wave physician credentials around, people typically spilled (and was that a thin string of guilt being tugged inside of her? No.) Anyway, it all sounded a lot like ‘it’s you, it’s me,’ which was a human dating cliche even Regan knew about it and had experience with. (“It’s not that you smell like decomposition, it’s that my nose doesn’t like it”. And then Jake had died a few days later and she’d briefly been under investigation, but that was another life, wasn’t it?)

“That’s unfortunate. It sounded like the two of you were cohabitating well. You know, slicing each other’s fruit, looking out for each other. Perhaps something happened. Did you ask? You probably did.” And she left anyway. That seemed to be the case with many people in Van’s life, didn’t it? Regan left for Ireland without truly saying goodbye. Thea moved out under some strange excuse, and Jade was doing a diligent job of avoiding her. Then there was the ham child and Wynne, of course, who had also left Van behind. At least Regan could be back. (She could, right? Not everyone might agree.)

She scooted uncomfortably on the step. Regan didn’t like pillows. She also did not see the irony of that distaste combined with her current discomfort. Pillows were either for opulence or decoration, sometimes both, and she wasn’t fond of either of those concepts. But humans needed comfort, sometimes more than anything strictly vital for their survival. “It’s good you have made use of the card. Were you able to replace the chair, too? For yourself. I don’t –” Was Van worried Regan would need this place back now? She couldn’t. And especially not after hearing about what happened to Van’s actual house. “– You should pick what you like. Croissants, sharks, livers, gallbladders, whatever else they make into pillows.” She considered floating Jade’s name, because Jade would have enjoyed helping Van pick things out, but that was a poor idea. She knew just enough.

“Hey, do you want to show me? The pillows, and anything else you purchased and like.” If there were any shaped like livers, she would offer critique. “After, there are some things you may be able to, uh, accompany on.” Help with was still uncomfortable to say. Regan stretched herself up, holding the railing for support, but pain shot across her back, tunneling into her scapulas like they were in Siobhan’s hands. “Lobhadh mór,” she muttered, bracing, holding tight. The pain sliced through her then dissipated. “Say, how… is your croissant for thoracic support?” She could continue to not like pillows. It changed nothing. “And how much do you know about phones?”

—

Van never thought of herself as being somebody that other people needed, and even though she shouldn’t have been happy about the idea that Nora might need her, it did make her feel a little bit better. To others, her’s and Nora’s friendship existed in absolution. Nora without Van, Van without Nora— it didn’t make sense. It was like one of those cringey memes that Facebook moms posted about— ketchup and mustard, or whatever — what was the point of only having one? “And like, I’ll definitely be there for her.” She would be there for Nora in whatever capacity that was needed. She knew grief, and for somebody who had seemingly never been visited by it, it would make a mess out of Nora’s mind. Van needed to be there. 

“Um, no— I haven’t been back since like, it happened. Maybe I will once they pull everything out.” Her childhood, the memories— maybe what would be beneath it all would be the bones of those things. Maybe Regan would finally get her wish, and she’d have the bones she wanted from around the first time that Van had mentioned them. “Jealousy over like, I don’t know.” She shrugged, looking down at her slides, “maybe it was Janice. She got fired and stuff, remember? She like, totally sucked.” Van didn’t actually know if Regan remembered Janice or not, but she didn’t think it mattered. Maybe Regan would take her explanation at face value. 

Van gave Regan a sideways glance, unable to contain the bark of laughter that escaped her. She covered her mouth with the back of her hand, giving a subtle shake of her head. “I did ask, but she was super vague. I get it. I can also be like, super vague.” It was her specialty, and it’d been about time that she met her match. Then again, she met a few of them— one of which was sitting right beside her now. “I do really miss slicing her fruit.” There was no euphemism in that. Van jumped at the chance to slice an apple, or even a mango for Thea as she walked through the door after a hard day’s work. Usually she’d shower, and the plate would be set out on the counter and Van would be curled up on the couch with her switch in her hands, hoping to defeat Hades before she got to the fortieth play through, which she only ever did when she had Thea’s encouragement. Since Ireland, her switch had gone missing— stowed away with Nora in Regan’s suitcase. She knew it was in the crypt now, but she hadn’t even thought to touch it. 

“Oh, yeah. I also got a chair. I just thought the pillows were really cool.” The croissant one was nearly bigger than her entire torso. It was good for hugging. The shark pillow sat stationary at the end of the bed, staring at her with its beady little eyes. She’d give it to either Thea or Nora, whoever came back around first. “It’s really comfy. Not sure how it is on the melting scale or whatever, but it’s nice to sit criss-cross applesauce in.” It looked like Regan wanted to say more, and Van wished she could will the older woman to spill it, but she knew there was no place for that here. This was a reunion with a plethora of things better left unsaid, perhaps for both of their benefits. 

Surprise danced across Van’s features as Regan asked to see the pillows. She practically scrambled into a standing position, one hand on the railing of the concrete staircase. “Um, I’d love to! I even got these strawberry glasses— they’re like the ones from Nana.” She didn’t know if Regan knew what that was. She’d make her watch it later, and Regan would probably be just as heartbroken as her by the media. Van hadn’t anticipated this kind of reunion when Regan came back, but she was grateful for it anyway. “Are you okay…? Was it the plane ride? I hear they can be really bad for your back.” She frowned at Regan before motioning her back up the few steps that would lead into the apartment. “I don’t know what thoracic support means, but I don’t think there are any dinosaurs living in it, no.” She shook her head sadly before opening the door, kicking the slides off to the side to pad into the kitchen to reveal the glasses she had mentioned. At Regan’s question about phones, she nodded, “oh, I know a lot about phones! I’ve had like, loads.” She watched Regan suspiciously, “are you finally ready to move on from the Blackberry? Let’s do it.”