#causefulmoon

“So, you need to wear this,” the older woman thrust a t-shirt in Clem’s direction, “with somebody else for twelve hours, or until the rest of the competition is out!” Clem turned the white shirt over in her hands. The only branding was the apparent pink logo on the back, which read: WOODLES: WORM LIKE NOODLES! In smaller text, below the bright pink, was yellow: NO WORMS. Clem had made it her mission upon buying the instant noodles to make sure that there were no actual worms in the noodles. She’d found it to be completely worm free, and the only thing the company was doing was making money off of the worm gimmick that’d taken over Wicked’s Rest by storm. The directions were easy enough. They had to stay in a drawn square that looked way more like an oval. 

Clem had found somebody to be her buddy in the contest. It was a college-aged frat bro who had nothing better to do. But just as they were about to pull the t-shirt on together, a younger woman came into view, screaming about how she knew he hadn’t been at football practice. Really, Clem wanted nothing to do with it, and watched wistfully as her chance at a year's supply of WOODLES went, just like that. 

Until, a single individual appeared. They had their back turned to her, but by the time Clem had approached her, she realized who it was. The scent hit her immediately, and before she could turn around, Rory was already looking at her. 

The same lady who’d given her the shirt approached the two of them, “you’re our last two contestants who do not have partners.” Clem’s face felt awfully hot. “It’d do both of you well if you paired up, otherwise WOODLEs will disqualify you.” 

— 

Though she had two jobs to her name, Rory wasn’t exactly swimming in cash. Being alive was fucking expensive, even if you had a roommate to fall back on. The last thing she wanted was to fail to get Mickey her half of the rent (even if she knew he’d be understanding and cool about it), which often meant scrambling to make sure she had enough cash in her account to cover things. Sometimes, this meant she struggled to find the funds to get proper meals in her stomach at the end of the day. Because of this, Rory had tried just about every cheap noodle brand the store had to offer. And, despite their weird, wormy slogan, Woodles were the best of the best. 

They weren’t particularly expensive noodles — you could get them for pennies on the dollar, actually — but if Rory could avoid an additional expense, she wanted to. When the Woodles Factory (which was apparently in town?) announced a competition that would award the winners free Woodles for a year, Rory was quick to sign up. The details of the competition were kept under apparent cloak and dagger until the day of. When she got there, it was not what she’d been expecting. 

Someone pushed a shirt into her arms and ordered her to find a partner, and Rory felt a little bit like she was in high school watching everyone else pair up for a group project. It had never been rare for her to be the last one selected in those cases; she felt the rejection settling like ash on her tongue. She approached someone, only to have them wave to another person across the crowd and go towards them instead. 

Tensing, Rory looked around as the crowd thinned and everyone paired up. Her eyes landed on the only other lone figure left, and she felt as if a jolt passed through her body as the familiar face registered. Clem. 

Rory scanned the area half-desperate, silently begging the universe to show her anybody else, but the organizer’s voice sealed the deal. It was Rory and Clem, or it was disqualification. And Rory really wanted those noodles. “Fine,” she sighed, gritting her teeth. “Whatever. I’ll do it if she will.”

—

The day Clem had left Rory in the woods was a day that felt like concrete had injected her bloodstream, making it impossible for her to move forward. She felt like she was still in The Pines, silently begging for Rory to understand the truths that were written into her skin. Her anger had come out, mixing with that of Rory’s anger, and it was game over. It had taken her way too long to get home, and even after she did find her way back, the anger hadn’t subsided. Working was hell, because every time the door opened, she had to wonder if it would be Rory that she’d be working with. It was an odd thing, being the one in the right and being the one most worried for further interactions. 

She opened her mouth to speak, but Rory was already confirming that she would go through with the contest. Clem wasn’t the type of person to back down, especially when food was on the line, so she grit her teeth, deciding that she’d match Rory’s attitude towards the contest, and shrugged. “Yeah, fine.” 

The woman didn’t look like she cared that there was obvious beef between the two. “Great! Keep the extra t-shirt.” She dashed away, making her way to the frontmost section of the giant square everyone was being corralled towards. Clem avoided eye contact with Rory as she began to shake out her own shirt. “We can use mine.” Still not looking directly at her, she held one corner of the bottom of the shirt towards Rory for her to take. 

— 

She didn’t realize she’d been hoping Clem would say no until she said yes instead. Rory didn’t want to spend any kind of time with Clem, but she also didn’t want to let Clem know that she’d gotten to her. She wanted to pretend that nothing Clem said to her at all mattered, that she didn’t care about their argument in the woods or the way it forced her to reflect on Owen and Oliver and Talia and Mateo and her relationship with her mother and the quiet, uncomfortable tightness that had lived in her chest for years now. If Clem had said no, Rory could have pretended that she was the one with the problem, and that Rory herself was indifferent. But Clem said yes, and Rory had to grit her teeth around the feeling. 

“Great,” she snapped, voice brittle enough that she half-worried it might snap itself in two in her throat. This was so the opposite of what she wanted. At the Wormhole, she and Clem mostly worked opposite shifts. Rory didn’t tend to be on at the same time as Clem, and it worked out. But there was no getting around this, was there? The two of them, sharing a fucking shirt, for twelve fucking hours. Christ. This was some kind of torture, Rory was certain of it. 

Some childish part of her — the part with six older siblings she’d spent all her life bickering with — wanted to insist that her shirt was better, actually, but she knew that that was silly. The shirts were pretty much identical, so it didn’t matter. Rory tossed the spare one behind her, letting it fall to the ground as she grabbed the bottom of the shirt Clem held and began pulling it on. “We don’t have to talk or anything,” she said. “I just want my fucking noodles. So don’t ruin it.”

—

It was clear neither of them wanted to be around each other, but the power of the Woodles was too strong, uniting them to defeat their shared hunger. Though, Clem had to wonder, would they both get a year’s supply? Or would it be split between them? She didn’t want to really think about that, because it meant sharing another part of her life with Rory. So much was tied up in the other bartender that it was hard to figure out where she began and where she ended. 

She thought about Harvey’s comment about not wanting their drama in the bar, and Clem felt a little bitter. Shouldn’t he have said he’d just fire Rory instead? But was that even really what she wanted? (No, not at all. She wanted Rory to wisen up, and decide that Clem had been right all along, and then they could go back to… what even were they?) (Something more than friends, and something worse all at the same time.) 

“Yeah, because I’m going to be the one to ruin it.” Clem rolled her eyes as she pulled the rest of the shirt on. Luckily, it was pretty spacious. She could feel Rory’s arm against her own, though, and she felt her skin like some burning hot iron that might press too closely into the muscle, so she jerked away. “How’d you even hear about this?” It was a question that was muttered under her breath, but she knew Rory would hear it. 

The woman was asking them all to enter the squared out area and going over rules now, and so Clem watched bitterly, trying to ignore Rory. 

— 

“You would be the one to ruin it,” Rory snapped back, wanting to point out that it was Clem who had ruined whatever budding friendship they’d been working towards. Wasn’t it easier to think that way? Rory had been a little mean in the woods, and in the online conversations that followed, but wasn’t it Clem who had started it? She was the one who insisted she knew more about Rory than Rory herself, with no real substance to pull from. She was the one who was trying to casually blow Rory’s life into pieces, and for what? For the satisfaction of being right, even when she was wrong? It was Clem’s fault that things had ended poorly, just like it was her high school best friend’s fault they no longer spoke, just like it was all of her exes’ faults that they’d broken up. 

It was easier for Rory to tell herself this. It was easier for Rory to convince herself that she had done nothing wrong, that every ounce of her anger was justified. What did Clem expect? Did she think Rory would accept the word of a near stranger over the word of her mother, her father, her siblings? She’d earned far worse than a few unkind words and being left in the woods to find her own way home. She was lucky Rory hadn’t punched her, really. 

“There was a flyer at —” Shit. There was a flyer at the Wormhole, on the wall by the door where people hung things advertising local events or missing pets or people. Of course Clem would have seen the same ad on her shift. Rory should have torn it off the wall to make sure she didn’t. Hindsight was twenty-twenty, or whatever. “It doesn’t fucking matter. Whatever. Just…” She trailed off, gesturing to the squared area and taking a step in that direction, dragging Clem along with her.

The rules, luckily, were simple. Stay in the shirt, stay with your partner, and stay in the square. The square would shrink every hour, forcing everyone closer and closer together. It was definitely not the kind of situation Rory wanted to be in with someone she’d rather ignore, but that was the way of things, she guessed. 

—

“God. Can you just like–” Clem inhaled sharply through her nose, clenching her jaw. “Sure. I ruined it. For being honest, by the way. Literally did nothing else.” Maybe she’d been a little mean, but Rory had been, too, and she wasn’t going to take full ownership over the situation, especially considering it was Rory who was the one that was stuck in her delusions. They were garnering a few stares from a neighboring pair, and while Clem normally wouldn’t have given a fuck about making other people uncomfortable, she didn’t want to get disqualified from being able to get free food. 

Clem tugged slightly to the left, feeling the resistance from Rory’s end of the shirt, which almost made her shove. God, this fucking sucked, but it was food on the line, and Clem would do anything for free food. Well, maybe not anything, but some things! The kinds of things that weren’t going to get her killed, at least. The night she’d gotten home, she had tried to conjure up some image of an ocelot, just to fix whatever she’d broken between herself and Rory, but it was entirely absent; a thing left unseen. In its place was a wolf with blood stuck to its teeth and gums, devouring alongside her. Her skin prickled slightly as she remembered the night, and the urge to tell Rory how wrong she was (again) nearly made its way to the tip of her tongue, but she withheld for the stupid noodles and the stupid contest. 

The woman went on to explain the rules, and Clem rolled her eyes. People were starting to take seats, both with their backs to one another, stretching the shirt beyond its capabilities, and side-by-side. The side-by-side method seemed to work easier for most, and Clem chewed the inside of her cheek. The sound of ripping from somewhere made Clem look towards a pair that were possibly younger than herself and Rory, and immediately the contest surveyor hurried over. “I forgot to add! If your shirt rips, you’re disqualified. There is no getting away from your partner. You need to be like the worm! You know, one with the earth. One of you is the worm, and one of you is the earth.” Immediately, somebody came to escort the pair off of the taped out square, and Clem cleared her throat. “Fucking of course.” 

—- 

“God, for the last fucking time, it isn’t being honest if you’ve just decided something is the truth when it isn’t!” Rory replied sharply, losing whatever small amount of composure she’d been holding onto by a thread. She could stand this sort of thing, to some extent, from people who backed down the moment she argued with them. But Clem didn’t fit that bill, did she? Clem was so sure she was right, left so little room for any sort of alternative. And maybe Rory could have respected that in some other scenario, but in this scenario, Clem was wrong. In this scenario, someone she’d known for only a few months was trying to claim, in a way that left little room for argument, that everything Rory knew about her life was a lie, as if she knew Rory better than her own parents did. How fucked up was that? How could Rory be expected not to get angry?

She resisted the urge to shove at Clem as they put on the shirt together, knowing that knocking the other girl down would only succeed in knocking her down, too. If she wanted to win this thing — and she did — she was going to need to put up with Clem at least for a little while. Of course, she could only do that if Clem would shut up. It wasn’t Rory’s fault that Clem couldn’t seem to stop talking about things she clearly didn’t understand well enough to actually speak on, was it? 

She listened to the rules as they were explained, watching as another pair ripped their shirt and were escorted away. Evidently, there was no escaping the proximity with Clem. Not unless Rory was willing to forfeit her prize, which she wasn’t. That familiar competitive feeling she’d grown up with had already settled deep in her chest, burrowing down between her ribs in a way that would make it nearly impossible to remove. There was no way she was losing this thing, even if that meant putting up with Clem for however long it took. Ushering for Clem to move with her, she sat, quietly surveying their competition. “I think we should sabotage someone,” she said lowly, quiet enough that no one but Clem would be able to hear her. “We don’t actually want to sit here for twelve fucking hours, so…” Thinning the crowd would be necessary.

—

Clem rolled her eyes. There was no getting through to Rory, and she was stupid for thinking that she could. It wasn’t her fault that Rory’s delusions were so ingrained in her that she couldn’t see her life for what it was.Though, Clem did have to wonder just how many people lied to her about what she was, and how many times they backed down from the conversation they had had about it. She couldn’t imagine lying to Rory, not when there was something about their friendship that felt so right. Clem hated the idea that Rory disliked her now, but even that wasn’t enough to keep Clem from being honest. She’d lived most of her life without friends, what did it matter now? 

After the rules were explained, everyone was directed to sit down, and Clem had no choice but to be jostled by Rory as they found their way to a suitable area. She awkwardly sat next to Rory, careful not to stretch the shirt too much. She thought that there’d be more insults thrown her way, but instead, Rory seemed to focus on the competition. That, she could understand. She wanted to win, probably more than most people here. She chewed her lower lip, looking around at the others. Some were older, some around their age. Most looked determined. 

Even from where they sat, Clem could hear the whispered conversations. “I feel like we could probably just pit them all against each other. Get them angry enough to fight or something.” She shrugged, and it practically moved the whole shirt with the movement. Fuck, she hated this. With a sigh, Clem rubbed her face, using the hand that was outside the shirt, and not pressed against Rory. “Say stupid shit. Make them believe stupid shit.” It was a jab at Rory, and she would probably pick up on it, but Clem didn’t care. “You know, the usual.” 

—- 

The thing was, Rory didn’t want to dislike Clem. Kind of the opposite, actually. She felt weirdly drawn to the other girl, like they had some kind of connection that was a hard thing to explain but an impossible one to deny. She wanted to like Clem, wanted to hang out with her the way they had at Another Castle when Morgan taught them to cook, wanted to shoot the shit the way they had when she’d first started at the Wormhole. But she couldn’t do that if Clem was going to try to push some stupid, impossible lie just so that she could feel a little less alone. It wasn’t Rory’s fault Clem was a werewolf, and it shouldn’t be Rory who had to make her feel better about it. She wouldn’t accept a lie about herself just because someone else felt comforted by it. It didn’t matter how hard Clem pushed, or how much she seemed to believe it.

She would, however, force herself to endure Clem’s presence in the name of ramen. It shouldn’t be too hard; she doubted Clem would bring up werewolves in a crowd so tightly pushed together like this, and if she did, Rory could loudly claim she was crazy and pressure her into dropping the topic for as long as they were in the competition. And when the competition was over, Rory could go back to avoiding her. It was a solid plan. 

And so was the plan to sabotage someone. Rory knew Clem didn’t want to sit here for twelve hours sharing a t-shirt anymore than she did. “That could work,” she nodded at the idea of making people angry, though she bristled a little as Clem continued with an obvious jab. “Yeah, you’re good at saying stupid shit and pissing people off,” she replied, much less subtle with her own insult. “You should give it a try.”

—

“Yeah, I’m so good at it that it turns out to be the truth.” Clem knew that now was not the time for the conversation, especially because they were so tightly packed together, but she still wanted to make sure Rory knew where she stood. That just because they were practically stuck together, didn’t mean that she’d relent on the subject. Because Clem knew herself to be honest typically, and Rory wasn’t somebody she felt like she needed to lie to. Didn’t that mean something? Shouldn’t it have? But, instead, Rory had her head buried in some kind of lie that could easily be disproved by a number of things. 

Clem knew that any kind of future the two had together was one that would be settled in contempt. It wasn’t totally Clem’s fault. Sure, she could’ve been softer about it, but she’d never been good at being soft to begin with, so it felt disingenuous. Rory didn’t seem like she’d been cut of soft cloth, either, so really, it probably would’ve gone worse if Clem had started out with something about how she knew it’d be hard for the other to accept. Lost in the what if’s of it all, Clem was gradually pulled back to the present as the announcer began to speak, pulling another couple out of the running. Apparently one of the two men had their hands outside the square. 

Suddenly aware of every part of her body (and not just because she was so close to Rory), Clem straightened up, tucking the hand that was through the sleeve into her lap. She glanced over her shoulder to make sure neither she nor Rory were close to the edge, before looking towards the other competitors. There was nothing animalistic in nature that Clem could sniff out (excluding Rory, obviously), and so doing a whole werewolf bit was probably out of the question. Not that she even knew what kind of bit she’d do, anyway. “We could sing? Shitty music, you know? Or talk loud about like, I don’t know.” She looked around, looking towards the huddled competitors directly in front of them. “They’re sitting really close to the edge.” She kept her voice low. “If we can trip them up at all…” After a brief moment, Clem cleared her throat, raising her voice so it’d carry to them. “Hey! Were you wearing a Mothman shirt earlier?” They haven’t been– it was definitely Wormy. “He’s like, the best, isn’t he?” 

—- 

“Oh, I’m sure you think that,” Rory shot back, quietly seething. In truth, she wouldn’t have been quite as angry if Clem had been the first person to make this wild claim. If Clem had been the first person to say, with no real concrete proof to the matter, that Rory was a werewolf, she might have felt something like pity towards the other girl. She might have seen it as some desperate attempt to feel less alone by someone whose whole life had been turned upside down. Rory had no idea what it must have felt like to go from being one thing to being something else overnight, but she understood loneliness. She’d felt like something set apart from her siblings all her life, had experienced the crushing loneliness that came with that. It must have sucked for Clem, genuinely. She must have been looking for a connection wherever she could find it, must have been so desperate to find someone else like her. And maybe, under different circumstances, Rory could have felt some sort of empathy towards her.

But not like this. Not when Rory had felt as though she was reeling since the moment she’d arrived in this strange town, not when everyone kept telling her something different. She often felt as though the only person who’d ever really supported her being what she was was Guillermo, and with him… gone, she felt like she was floundering. It was as if she’d been tossed in the middle of a lake with no life preserver, as if no one had ever taught her to swim. She had nothing to hold onto, nothing to keep her afloat. And Clem — and Owen, and Mateo, and god, Oliver — were tying cinderblocks to her limbs every time they tried to convince her to misunderstand herself. 

The announcer’s voice pulled her from her thoughts, and she watched as one team was stripped of their shirt and removed from the circle. One down, about a dozen left to go. Rory followed Clem’s lead in tucking her hand into her lap, glancing back to make sure they were nowhere near the edge. She felt Clem beside her scanning the crowd for weakness, allowed herself to do the same. “I don’t know. Singing might just make us a target, you know? Everybody working together to get the annoying people out. I think we should target them one at a time.” Her eyes landed on the pair Clem indicated, and she tilted her head with a faint smirk. They were pretty close to the edge. “Oh, yeah!” She joined in, nodding. “I love Mothman. Coolest cryptid in town, right?”

“What?” The Wormy fan sounded offended. “No. Mothman is overrated. I would never wear a Mothman shirt.”

“Uh, I’m pretty sure you were?” Rory let her eyes slide over to meet Clem’s in an exaggerated gesture, feigned doubt pulling her eyebrows together. 

The Wormy fan scoffed, hands shooting down to pull up his shared shirt as if to prove his love to Wormy. His partner slapped at his hands, trying to keep him from lifting the shirt. And, with both of them moving in different directions, the sound of fabric ripping echoed through the space.

—

Clem could dig in, could rip into how she knew she was right; could recall it from the night before everything went downhill. How even now, pressed up against Rory like she was, the scent was unmistakable. How it matched that of Talia’s weeks ago, and how the older woman had affirmed that she was a werewolf. She might be new to the life of a werewolf, but she knew deep down what it was about, could feel it like a siren’s call all her life– that she was meant for something greater, that the life she was living before was not something necessary, but that being bitten was. Despite Daiyu’s warnings and Rory’s frustration over the fact that Clem thought she knew anything about what it meant to be a werewolf, she knew herself. It was buried deep inside of her, a ravenous clawing thing, to be something other than what she was. It was like she’d always been meant to be it, and it had been waiting for her to uncover the secrets of what it took to become it. 

So she would die on the hill, she would self-insert her beliefs into Rory’s life, not because she believed them to be superior, but because she saw them as right. There was a part of Clem that was so desperate to not be alone, but not at the expense of lying about something so… grand. It hurt Clem to know that so many people had lied to Rory about her life, had hurt her in a way that was pressing guilt of her own existence into her chest; that she wasn’t good enough to know what Rory truly was, that just because she was a werewolf now didn’t mean she was any good at understanding it. Because in reality, Clem believed that she understood being a werewolf better than anything else she’d been confronted with. “Okay.” The word didn’t sound so much like a word as it did a sound, but she didn’t have time to really say much else, because she was being pulled towards their common alliance: get the fucking noodles (woodles). 

This was another time, and another place– where they could succumb to the fact that they co-existed well. Clem piped up as Rory began to egg them on. “Yeah, besides– Mothman is way cooler.” 

It didn’t take very much coaxing from either of them to incite frustration, because the shirt ripped in a matter of minutes from the time they’d begun poking fun. Clem grinned towards Rory as the partner of the Wormy fan began to plead with the announcer, pointing in their direction. “We were just having a conversation. It’s not like we touched their shirt or anything.” She rolled her eyes, absolving herself as the reason they’d been disqualified. 

Now, that left… how many more teams? Clem counted them, then turned towards Rory, twisting in the shirt in a way that would leave a plethora of loose fabric between them so that it didn’t rip. She heard somebody’s stomach growl, and she tried to narrow down the sound. “Did you hear that? Maybe we can talk about hot dogs.” A small reminder to the life they could’ve shared together had Rory not been a fucking moron regarding the whole werewolf thing, but alas– “I want a hot dog so fucking bad right now.”

—

She was expecting Clem to argue. In a way, it would have been easier if she had. Despite all her insistence that she knew better, that Clem was mistaken, that it was a stupid thing to bicker about to begin with, a part of Rory needed it to be a fight. She needed it to be something that she convinced Clem of only after a hard wrought argument, needed it to be a thing where Clem eventually came over to her way of thinking not because she was tired of having the same fight over and over again but because Rory had convinced her. It was better, Rory thought, if she could make Clem understand. If she could convince Clem, it was proof that everyone who thought differently thought wrong. 

But she had not convinced Clem. She knew that, could see it written all over the other girl’s face. This was a temporary alliance that used to be a blossoming friendship, and Rory hated it. She didn’t want to fight with Clem, even if she couldn’t let herself give in to the other’s claims. She didn’t want Clem to roll over, but she didn’t want her to keep arguing, either. She wanted a thousand contradictions; there was no way for her to get everything she was asking for. She didn’t even know if there was a way for her to get most of it.

There was, however, a way for her to get noodles. And for now, that would have to do.

If they could agree on nothing else, they could at least agree on the noodles. Rory tried not to think about how easy it was to interact with Clem, about the way Clem played along with her ploy without her having to spell anything aloud. The Wormy fan was clearly furious with both of their manipulative egging on, and in a matter of moments his shirt had torn and he was disqualified despite his partner’s pleas. Rory let Clem be the one to claim that they’d done nothing wrong. They had done nothing wrong… and besides, there was no rule against sabotage. 

There were still a lot of other teams to get through, of course. Rory’s sharp ears picked up the growling of someone’s stomach just as Clem’s did, and she raised her brows as she turned towards it. It seemed to have come from a woman to their right who was looking longingly towards the noodle cart off to the side of the circle, selling noodles to spectators. Rory nudged Clem and nodded towards the woman. “Maybe we should talk about the noods?” She suggested, tilting her head. “That’s what she’s here for, right?”

—

The murmur of conversation, both from participants and onlookers, filled the space where she and Rory sat, side by side. Clem watched the target they’d honed in on. The woman was attached to somebody who couldn’t be that much older than either herself or Rory. They looked bored, completely ignorant to the growling of the woman’s stomach, or the way that Clem, herself, spoke about hot dogs. But that didn’t seem to do anything, and Rory had luckily noticed one important detail: she seemed entirely enamored with the noodle cart. 

Clem cast a glance between them, chewing the inside of her cheek, giving a small nod in Rory’s direction. “Soft boiled eggs, seven minutes.” She let out a long, drawn out sigh. “Wait, Rory, do you eat yours with hot sauce?” The WOODLES they were giving away were unfortunately not the spicy kind, so she’d need to add her own heat. She was curious to know how Rory ate hers, so that maybe they could– 

No, she remembered. That wouldn’t be happening. They wouldn’t be sharing noodles. They were sharing this moment, and once the moment was done, Clem knew they’d go back to the way things were before– to the conversation they’d dropped out of solidarity for the hope of winning the contest. “Green onions… oh, maybe some cut up chicken tenders.” She was making herself salivate, but she’d been smart enough to actually have a nice breakfast before attending. 

—- 

She hated how easy it was to fall back into scheming with Clem, hated thinking about the life where the pair of them could have spent all their time at the Wormhole pranking customers and manipulating situations to their own betterment had things not unraveled the way they had. Rory didn’t have many friends, and she’d really thought Clem could be one of them. She’d really thought that the two of them could wind up as a ride or die duo, and it sucked to know it would never be the case now. But Rory told herself that it was her choice and pushed the feeling to the side. She focused instead on the task at hand — the noodles, and the plan to make sure they were the ones who won them. They could split them evenly down the middle and go back to ignoring each other soon. Rory told herself that this, too, was something she wanted.

“Oh, yeah, I have to have hot sauce,” she confirmed, feeling her own stomach perk up in interest as they spoke. Rory had made sure to eat a hearty meal before she came here — she was in this for the long haul — so if she was getting kind of hungry talking about the WOODLES, the woman with the already-growling stomach must have been starving. 

Careful to keep from looking directly at the hungry woman in order to keep them from giving themselves away, Rory nodded along as Clem spoke. “Have you ever added shrimp?” She questioned. “Or, sometimes I crush up chips and put them in there for texture, you know? The crunch is great.” The woman with the growling stomach groaned, shifting to clutch her gut as it rumbled once more.

—

“God, you are so–” A compliment died on the tip of Clem’s tongue, and she cleared her throat. “So right.” That was the most that Rory would get out of her, because she hadn’t forgotten the woods, or their conversation online. While this wasn’t necessarily a friendly competition (all things considered), it was easy to understand that she and Rory were on the same side. The side that was sending all of the other competitors to the brink. Brink of hunger, brink of anger, brink of exhaustion, so on and so forth. They’d win these noodles, and then they’d go on their way. 

Clem nodded as Rory asked if she had ever added shrimp. “In a town like Wicked’s Rest, you kind of have to, don’t you?” She looked at the woman who was avoiding eye contact with them now, but she could still hear the gurgling of her stomach. “Chips?” She turned to look at Rory now, eyebrows raised. “I thought I was the only one who did that? People called me fucking weird for it.” Maybe it was a testament to the friendship they could’ve had– crushed up jalapeno chips stuffed in their cup ramen, or maybe takis. Either way, it was still a surprise to know just how much she and Rory actually had in common with one another. Even if it was just chips, and well, the whole werewolf thing. 

Only issue is, their biggest commonality was ignored largely by the girl opposite her, and Clem had paid the price for even bringing it up. She felt her chest tighten, then she looked back at the woman. “Ugh. With a root beer, or even a Dr. Pepper.” 

The woman was muttering something to her partner, and Clem tried her best to parse exactly what was being said, but it was in a language she didn’t understand. French, maybe? 

—-

It seemed like Clem wanted to say something else, and part of Rory wanted to ask what the original phrasing had been. Something more substantial than right, or something else entirely? Or maybe she had the wrong idea. Maybe Clem had stumbled over her words because the mere act of pretending to agree with Rory was something herculean. The thought left a bitter taste on her tongue, though she knew this was a bed she’d made for herself at least in part. She could have been gentler in telling Clem she was wrong, maybe, could have explained without insulting. Maybe then, the other girl would have accepted the truth and they could have remained friends. It had worked well enough with others, hadn’t it? With Owen and Mateo. But there was something different about Clem, wasn’t there? Rory couldn’t explain what it was, not even to herself. She just knew it was there, was all. 

She nodded, and the grin on her face wasn’t as forced as she thought it probably should have been. She wished Clem were harder to talk to; she wished they were less alike. “I put fried shrimp in there, sometimes,” she said, not looking at the woman with the rumbling stomach but listening to her all the same. “With the chips. It makes a really good combo. Anybody who doesn’t think so is close-minded and stupid.” She’d never met anyone else who put chips in their ramen, either, though. This feeling of kinship with someone she’d decided not to like stung, because she hadn’t really felt it with many other people. There was Madison, but part of what made their friendship work was the fact that they were very different people. There was Owen, there was Mateo, but they were both older. With Clem, it was different. They were alike. It hurt that they were alike.

“God, I’d kill for a Dr. Pepper right now,” Rory sighed. “Or, like, a snowcone.” Wait, no. They were on a mission here. “Do you smell the noodles? I can smell them from here. It’s definitely the cheesy flavor, you know? I bet they have parmesan over there. Maybe shredded cheese, too. And —” 

She was cut off by a shout. The woman they’d been targeting yelled something in French, then stood abruptly. The sound of fabric tearing seemed to echo, and Rory didn’t bother biting back a grin. “Aw,” she said, “bummer.”

—

“Fried shrimp. That sounds good, too!” Her mouth watered at all of the combinations that could be created with the WOODLES, and Clem couldn’t help but imagine Rory by her side in creating those combinations. In another life, maybe. This one, they were means to an end, weren’t they? “Ugh, yeah, so stupid.” With a shake of her head, she directed her attention back to the woman who was clearly frustrated by the talk of food. She was casting disgruntled glares in their direction, to which Clem took no offense. She could’ve been trying to fight back, or maybe cover her ears, or like Clem would do, think about the food she hated so that she didn’t continue to go hungry, but clearly she hadn’t thought of the ways to overcome her’s and Rory’s taunting. 

“I’m not like, a super huge fan of snowcones.” She preferred bingsu, but that was impossible to get in a place like Wicked’s Rest. The closest she got was bringing her own condensed milk and fruit to an ice shaver. “But a Dr. Pepper would go like, so hard right now.” Clem was practically staring at the woman who was muttering under her breath in French. Without looking at her present company, she nodded. “Definitely parmesan. God, it’s probably all gooey and good– not the shit that just sticks to the top and doesn’t melt down. Think about the cheese pull.” 

Suddenly, the woman got to her feet, the shirt tearing in response to her movements. “Oops!” Clem shrugged, looking back to Rory. A quick glance around the area told her that they only had to wait out three more pairs now. “This is like, totally doable.” 

One of the couples seemed like they were already on the outs, their argument about nothing in particular. Dinner, maybe? “Do you think they left something–” Before Clem could finish her sentence, the woman started to yell about her stove being left on. It took her a split second to practically shred the shirt in two as she hopped to her feet, clearly not listening to her partner that told her he’d turned it off. The woman dashed off, and Clem shook her head. “It’s like, so easy!” A giggle escaped her as she shifted slightly, careful to not rip the shirt she shared with Rory. “That leaves us, and those two.” The other pairs sat on opposite ends of the square. One was deep in conversation, while the other seemed… asleep? 

A buzzer went off, and the one jumped, leaning away from their partner who they’d fallen asleep on. The shirt ripped almost instantly. “What the fuck are these made of?” She felt the fabric of her own shirt. They seemed like good quality, so why were they ripping so easily? Maybe it was just the seams. Then again, Clem didn’t know a whole lot about clothing to begin with, so… 

“One more.” 

—- 

 Clem was a good actor. The way she agreed with Rory, added on to her imagined dish in order to add to their opponent’s hunger… It was convincing. If Rory hadn’t known better, even she might have been convinced that she and Clem were friends. But, of course, Rory did know better. Rory knew that whatever budding friendship the pair of them had had was a thing of the past, torn apart by their own hands in a way that would be impossible to recover from. Even if Clem suddenly changed her tune entirely and declared that Rory had been right all along, Rory didn’t think she’d be able to believe her. There’d always be that quiet inkling of doubt that Clem was a heartbeat away from pressing again, and it would make it impossible to ever really relax. Rory didn’t want a friendship like that. She was pretty sure Clem didn’t, either.

So it was best for them to stick to whatever they had going on right now. This temporary alliance would dissolve as soon as they had their WOODLES in hand, but it was serving them well enough for the moment. It got the hungry French woman out of the race, which made it difficult not to grin. Rory fought the urge, trying instead to look surprised as the woman and her partner were escorted away. She watched the woman make a beeline to the WOODLE stand, and she figured it was probably a nice consolation prize. After that chat, she definitely wanted some ramen to enjoy.

“Yeah,” she murmured in quiet agreement with Clem, eyes scraping over the crowd, “this is, like, easy shit.” They’d already sabotaged multiple people, and they hadn’t even had to try that hard. The rest would be a breeze. In fact, they might not have to do anything at all. Two other pairings were out entirely of their own accord, leaving just Rory, Clem, and one other pair on the other side of the circle.

Rory took a moment to study them. It was a man and a woman, both sitting ramrod straight and staring intently at Rory and Clem. She could hear neither stomach growling; there were no obvious outward signs of tension between the pair. There was no idle conversation to pull from, either. Both were silent, and both were staring. Neither of them blinked, eyes locked intensely onto the last thing between them and their WOODLES. Rory shifted her weight inside the shirt, a little unsettled. 

“Dude,” she said quietly, “those people are giving me weird vibes. Are you picking up on this?”

—

Clem stared at the couple, shifting uncomfortably beneath the gaze of the last remaining pair. “Ugh, totally. They’re fucking weird.” But Clem knew how to do weird, even if it was on the outskirts of it. The fake kind of weird where somebody could call themselves weird to feel better about nobody wanting to spend time with them– that kind of weird. Case in point: Rory. Though, their circumstances were different, but that much didn’t matter now, not when they were competing for the same thing. 

“So what, do we out weird them?” Clem was whispering now. Maybe it was pointless, maybe they could hear her just as well as she and Rory could hear just about everyone else. Despite that, she still whispered, devising a plan beneath the guise of being interested with the ramen display cart. The worms looked unrealistic, large and cartoonish to the point that Clem considered looking up online whether or not they had a plush that was purchasable. 

“Maybe we just like, mimic them? You know?” She sat up a little straighter, careful not to move too much as to not test the integrity of their shared shirt. “And stare back.” She turned to face back towards them, staring deeply into the woman’s eyes. “God, her eyes are– why are they so blue? It’s like, actually hurting to look at.” 

— 

“Definitely fucking weird,” Rory agreed, not really caring if the other pair heard her. It felt kind of nice to agree with Clem, but only if she didn’t let herself think about it for more than a second or two. Thinking about it for too long brought her back to the big disagreement, the one she’d rather not remember at all. So long as Rory only focused on what was directly in front of her, she could pretend that all this was was a nice interaction between herself and someone who was almost her friend once. It was just… kind of hard to narrow her focus to that extent.

She considered Clem’s question, eyeing the couple carefully. Unlike their previous opponents, this pair had no obvious weaknesses. There were no seeds of uncertainty to sow between them, no arguments brewing beneath the surface or stomachs growling for noodles. There were just two people staring at them with intensity so sharp that it felt uncomfortable. Seriously, had they not blinked at all? What the hell was happening? 

She nodded at Clem’s suggestion, absently straightening her own back as well and narrowing her eyes. With Clem focused on the woman, Rory let herself look at the man. “His eyes are black,” she murmured. “Like… black black. I can’t even see his pupils. Do you think he might be a demon or something? I wonder if —” 

The man opened his mouth, a loud, wordless scream cutting whatever Rory had been about to say off at the knees. Her mouth snapped shut; his stayed open. The scream stretched on, lasting long enough that Rory was sure he should have run out of air by now. She glanced over to the competition judges, who hadn’t even looked up from their clipboards. “Dude,” she said, nudging Clem, “what the fuck?” 

—

Clem didn’t like the way they were looking at her. It wasn’t hungry, it wasn’t out of anger. It was some absent thing that she couldn’t identify. Maybe that’s why it made her so uncomfortable. At least she had Rory next to her, right? But was Rory really the shield she wanted her to be? Was she a shield at all? Would she sooner throw her to the wolves (pun intended), than to help her with whatever situation might arise? Not just now, but in the future, too. They had worked well together before the fight in the woods, and they were working together now, and while Clem didn’t figure Rory to be the kind of person that would make a last ditch effort to get hell out of dodge, she wasn’t sure she knew who Rory was at all anymore, not after the words they had exchanged, and how vehemently she’d been against her own identity that Clem knew as true. 

But it wasn’t that simple. None of it was. This could be, though. They could be competitors trying to make herself and Rory leave the contest out of discomfort. That’s what she and Rory had done, afterall. Clem looked briefly from the woman’s icy blue gaze to the man’s. They were indeed black. When Rory brought up demons, Clem nearly choked. Were those real? Anything could be possible, if one just believed! The idea scared her, and while all she knew about demons were from shows and the like, she couldn’t imagine that they’d be any better in the real world. “I hope not.” It came out as more of a squeak, hardly sounding like anything at all. 

If it were anyone else beside her, she might’ve reflexively reached out to hold onto some part of them. But it was Rory, and the closeness they were forced into was already too much to begin with. Her thoughts were drowned out by the scream the man unleashed. Clem shrunk back, wincing. It wasn’t enough to rip the shirt, or to fall out of the predetermined square. But it was enough to make Clem nauseous. It was loud– the kind of loud that’s hard to imagine until you hear it. It made her skin crawl. “What the fuck!” It was an echo of Rory’s sentiment, but she couldn’t pull her gaze away from his. She stared at him, until eventually the captivation released, and she looked to the woman, who was beginning to sob. It was loud and vicious, matching the integrity of the screams the man had belted; and her body began to shake as she arched forward, planting her hands to her face, dragging them down. The tears glistened off of her paper white skin, and then– laughter. They both started to laugh, bodies shaking. 

The rip of the t-shirts came next, some hollow thing that sounded unlike the rest. Then, they got to their feet. Clem was concerned they’d walk their way, but instead, they turned to one another, shaking one another’s hands, and left the square. Clem sat, dumbfounded, turning to look at Rory slowly. “Dude. What?” 

“WINNERS!!!!!!!! WE’VE GOT OUR WINNERS!!!!!!!!!!!” The alarm was loud, but somehow not louder than the scream from the man. It made her jump, but still, the shirt remained intact. 

—- 

This wasn’t the strangest experience of Rory’s life, but it might have taken the crown if it had happened to her a year ago, before Wicked’s Rest started settling under her skin. As it was, it was certainly something that fell into the top ten, an odd occurrence fighting a thousand other odd occurrences for the top spot. She wondered if it would have felt more or less strange with anyone else at her side. If Clem had been Madison instead, or Owen, or Mickey, would it have felt more normal? Was the pre-existing discomfort of being physically close to someone she’d been doing everything in her power to avoid since their argument in the woods adding to the strangeness of the situation? Or was it the opposite, somehow? If she’d been here with Madison or Mickey, she’d have had to find some way to explain it away without breaking their brains. Owen knew a little more about the supernatural, but he was still human. At least Rory knew Clem was fully aware of the world beneath the surface, even if she was still new to it. Maybe that helped, somehow. 

She didn’t think there was anything that could have made it feel normal, though. Not when the couple was staring at them in silence, eyes two opposite but unnatural colors, and not when they broke the silence, either. The scream was loud and piercing and it hurt Rory’s ears enough that her hands almost came up to cup them on instinct alone, though she shook off the impulse to avoid ripping the shirt. They hadn’t come this far to lose, and if they did lose, it wasn’t going to be Rory’s fault. She wouldn’t give Clem one more reason to be an insufferable know it all. Not today, not ever. The woman’s sobs joined in with the man’s screams, making the whole situation feel all the more uncomfortable. 

Clem echoed Rory’s sentiment and, before Rory could reply with anything else (which, frankly, would have probably just been another declaration of what the fuck), the sound of ripping shirts echoed through the competition space. It felt different than the rips from before, somehow; the sound wasn’t quite the same, the echo not as… real. For a moment, Rory thought she’d imagined it. But the couple rose to their feet and, without another word, exited the space, leaving only Rory and Clem behind to wonder what the hell had just happened. 

An alarm sounded, and Rory flinched, her ears still ringing from the man’s screams. Someone ran into the center of the circle holding a giant, woodle-shaped trophy. “Congratulations!” He yelled, grabbing Rory’s hand and holding it up. Someone else grabbed Clem’s, doing the same with it. “You’re the WOODLE CHAMPS! How do you feel?”

“Uh…” Rory glanced over at Clem, suddenly hyperaware of how close they were. “Great. Can we get out of this shirt and get our prize now?”

—

Clem couldn’t believe that they’d somehow achieved the title. She had anticipated winning on her own merit, but being beside Rory had been a hurdle she wasn’t sure how to deal with. Until it proved to be something not to be dealt with, but something… else. Something she didn’t want to get into, because there were more important things to worry about, like WOODLES. The free ones, the ones that would fill her cabinets from here on out. She shot a glance to Rory, opening her mouth to say something, but it snapped shut as the announcer continued on. 

Her hand was pulled into the air, and the sweaty grip made her sag next to Rory. Ew. She shot a glance to Rory who spoke before she could ask the question they both wanted to know the answer to. The man that was holding Rory’s hand hiccuped out a laugh, letting the signage drop to his side. “Why, of course! Come, collect your prize.” Clem was quick to slip out of the shirt, the warmth of Rory’s arm and its absence burning her skin. She got to her feet, brushing the dust of the floor from her backside, and then moved to follow the two men who led them to a giant desk where WOODLES was written across. Had they… just moved it there? 

“Here you go.” There was one pack of WOODLES placed onto the surface. Clem stared down at it, then looked up at the pair who were grinning ear to ear. “What– the– we were supposed to get a life supply?!” The man shook his head, pointing to the fine print that he took out a magnifying glass to read: LIMITED TO ONE PER DAY, ONE PER TWO INDIVIDUALS. WOODLES IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY ALLERGIC REACTIONS, OR ANY WORMS. In smaller text, below it, the cautionary message read: NO WORMS. Clem stood there, a little dumbfounded. “You have to be kidding me.” The man shook his head, smile still intact. He pushed the package closer to them. “We already have your addresses. But we see you both work at The Wormhole.” That hadn’t been information she’d given, and she didn’t figure Rory had either. “We’ll deliver it there, where you can share the love of WOODLES!” 

— 

It was funny — when the competition had been ongoing, she’d almost forgotten to feel uncomfortable in Clem’s presence. Sure, there’d been some discomfort, still, some irritation and annoyance at her luck, but for the most part Rory had been hyperfocused on the goal ahead of them, on the WOODLES they’d win. Now that that was out of the way, there was nothing but the stifling feeling of Clem’s presence, the overwhelming scent of her clinging to Rory’s nostrils. Suddenly, Rory felt as though she’d rather be anywhere else. Clem kept looking at her, and Rory kept averting her gaze to look at the announcer, or the WOODLE truck, or the torn shirts littering the ground. She didn’t want to have a conversation. She didn’t want Clem to remind her of that early morning in the woods.

She focused on the sticky feeling of the announcer’s sweaty grip, letting the disgust curl in her stomach and pretending that that disgust was for Clem, too, pretending that her feelings towards the other girl were as simple as her feelings towards someone else’s sweat touching her skin. Clem stepped out of the shirt before Rory could, and Rory told herself she was relieved that she could no longer feel their shoulders bumping. She followed the announcer over to a desk, still wearing the too-big shirt meant to house two bodies instead of one. How would they fit a lifetime supply of WOODLES on this small desk? Shouldn’t there be a cup or something? Doubt began to blossom in Rory’s chest.

And then, of course, the other shoe dropped. Hard, directly on her stupid head. One pack per day. For both of them. “Are you fucking kidding me?” Rory demanded, whirling to face the announcer. “This is bullshit!” There was some discomfort in knowing that these people knew where she lived and worked despite her never offering that information, but the outrage at the fucking highway robbery she was being made victim to burned hotter. “We’ve been out here for, like, a billion fucking years. We beat all those other people. You’re giving us one pack?”

“One pack a day,” one of the people behind the table offered helpfully, thrusting the WOODLE pack towards the pair of them. Rory seethed.

“This is bullshit,” she said again, but she snatched the pack anyway. Maybe she wanted something to show for her victory; maybe she just didn’t want Clem to have it. Even she wasn’t certain as to which.

With the contest won and the prize claimed, she should have felt… some form of accomplishment, maybe. It should have felt good, should have felt sweet, should have felt like a victory. But as Rory stood beside Clem, all she could think of was the friendship they could have had, and this… whatever that they had instead. It sucked. Sharing the prize sucked, too. All of it just… really sucked.

It was hard for Wren to do the whole friend thing. Mostly because she didn’t know how to be a friend. Her relationships had practically gone up in smoke the moment she attacked some other sirens in her colony before fleeing. She couldn’t handle anyone else looking at her like she was a monster when she didn’t even remember what she had done, but Clem? It felt different. It felt like she could actually talk to her—despite her stumbling over her own tendencies to accidentally reveal weird aspects of her being a siren then backtracking. Wren wasn’t good at being a friend, she definitely wasn’t good at being a human, but she wanted to be for her new friend.

Standing outside Periwinkle Paints, Wren clutched her sketchbook and her new paints against her chest. She waved at the seagulls atop the roof with a cheerful little smile, turning back around and practically perking up the second she saw Clem. “Clem!” She called happily, resisting the urge to outright skip toward where her friend was approaching. “Hi, thanks for hanging out with me! I know we like—we talked about movies and I figured like—well—” She was rambling. She totally knew this. She couldn’t stop it, but she was trying. “—um, sorry. I get rambly when I’m nervous, but yeah! We can like… hang out then maybe movies? Or just walk! Whatever you want.” She finished with a shy, tentative smile.

—

Clem wasn’t really that surprised when Wren asked her to hang out again. They’d gotten along well enough, and while Clem’s life wasn’t brimming over with friendships, the one that she’d managed to forge with Wren was one that she felt like keeping up with, at the very least. It wasn’t a long walk from where she’d parked to the paint shop. She smelled her before she saw her, and while that could be considered strange to some, it was something that was a core part of her relationship with those around her. Now, she just really knew when people needed to shower. 

Except, Wren smelled nice. Citrus and vanilla created a trail for her to follow, and Clem smiled at Wren. “Oh, totally!” She wasn’t used to people stumbling over their words with her, so this was new. “Nervous?” Clem blinked, unsure why any part of Wren could be nervous about hanging out with her. “Oh, because like, being outside?” That had to be it. She got it, sometimes, too. The thrum of anxiety in her throat, how it pooled, creating bile that made her chest burn. “I was thinking like, a movie at my apartment, maybe? But we can get some snacks or something, if you want? Then head back?” She jutted a thumb behind her, to a place that was further than Wren could see, “I parked like, way over there.” She smiled at Wren. “Maybe we can get some sushi or something. You know, a callback or whatever.” 

— 

At least Clem made it easy for Wren to not feel totally out of her depth with how easygoing she seemed to be. “Uh—yeah! Yeah. Outside just… has a lot of people. People in general make me nervous.” She babbled out, taking the out where she could get it. It’s not like it was a lie. People did very much make her nervous. Everyone made her nervous, but especially people she wanted to befriend, like Clem. Or at least befriend further? She didn’t know. Clem just made her nervous in a way that Wren hadn’t really ever felt before. A different nervousness that she couldn’t put a name on so she didn’t look at it too closely.

Nodding her head eagerly, Wren finally gave into the urge to skip a little to come to a bouncing stop beside Clem. “Yes! Yes, that sounds so fun. I love fish.” She hugged the sketchbook a bit tighter to her chest and laughed a little. “Hopefully Jeremy is having a terrible day.” She chirped with a little smile she shot in Clem’s direction. She started to walk toward where Clem gestured that she had parked. “I took my brother’s credit card so like—we can go crazy if we want. He won’t even notice. He’s a money spender like that.” She snorted.

—

“Oh, I totally get that.” Clem wasn’t a very nervous person by nature, but some people did just naturally make her more on edge, especially now with the whole werewolf thing being taken into account. “Is it like, bad to say you don’t need to be nervous around me? Like, feel what you feel, you know? But we’re totally cool.” She offered a warm smile to Wren, and it reached her eyes. She liked it when people liked her, despite the facade she often threw up. (Something, something, defense mechanism.) (Fuck, Nova was right–) “Plus, we like, robbed The Codfather together, technically, so like… legally, am I allowed to make you nervous?” 

She looked to the sketchbook that Wren was clutching, making a mental note to ask her more about it later. Clem knew that sometimes, people didn’t like sharing their art; that it was a personal thing meant for their eyes only. She wondered if Wren was like that. “Fuck Jeremy, for real.” She wished she’d figured out what car he’d been driving, she would’ve egged it or something, or written something across the window in lipstick. (Not that she wore lipstick, but–) Clem fell into step easily beside Wren, letting out a laugh at her comment about the credit card. “Wait, for real? Maybe we’ll get specialty rolls instead of the cheaper stuff.” She stuck her hands into her pocket, tilting her head back a little to feel the sun on her face. “Do you go to the paint shop a lot?” 

— 

A surprised little laugh escaped Wren and she tucked an errant strand of hair behind her ear. “It’s not a bad thing to say, no. I’m just kind of—I’ve been perpetually nervous my whole life. It’s nothing against you, swear.” She admitted with a little shrug. “I’m trying this whole being brave thing. Putting myself out there, trying not to let it hold me back. Some days are easier than others, some harder.” Clem’s warm smile did put her at ease. “But yes, the robbing definitely bonds us. Hope you’re okay with being stuck with me now.” She said, hesitating before bumping her elbow playfully against Clem as she grinned a little.

It was easy to laugh with Clem it felt like. Another laugh fell from Wren’s lips as easy breathing. “Seriously! Who the heck ghosts people? It’s so messed up. I hope Jeremy has the worst day ever.” She giggled. Her head then nodded quickly. “Oh yeah. We can definitely get something special instead of the normal, cheaper stuff. Whatever you want. On me! Well, my brother, but still on me.” She giggled again, teeth digging into her bottom lip. Wren’s gaze swept over the side of Clem’s face, smiling despite herself. “Uh—yeah! Yeah, actually. I like to paint rocks and put them outside the house or give them as gifts. I also just like to draw in general. Do you—would you like a rock? I’d love to make you one!”

—

“I mean, like, for what it’s worth, I think you’re doing a really good job!” She thought back to The Codfather, and how having dinner with a stranger was more than most people would do, even if it had been something that’d been sprung on the both of them. Clem gestured to nowhere in particular, obviously pulling from the time they’d spent together at that dinner. “I mean, if we’re going to rob more lobster buckets, then totally!” She bumped Wren back, matching her grin. “But like, seriously, I think the world can suck a lot, and trying is really cool, too.” She knew how hard life could be at a base level. “Living here probably doesn’t make it any easier.” But she loved her small, stupid town. Even if it wasn’t that small in the grand scheme of things. 

“Like, I guess unless you really have a reason for it, but even then…” Clem shook her head, thinking back to how the waitress’s discarded work clothing had been one of the things to help aid her in robbing them of their lobster buckets. “I hope he wakes up and stubs his toe like, every day.” She fished a starburst out of her pocket, unwrapping it, then looked over to Wren. “You paint rocks? That’s cool.” There’d been a resurgence with that, hadn’t there? Painting rocks? “What do you usually draw?” At Wren’s offer, Clem’s eyes lit up. “I’d love that! I’ll put it on my windowsill, away from Gecko so he can’t like, take it and hide it.” She paused. “He’s my ferret.” She popped the starburst into her mouth, tucking it to the side of her cheek.

—- 

A bashful smile pulled at Wren’s lips, her heart giving a little lurch in her chest. “Thanks,” she mumbled shyly. It was brave. There were so many times that Wren gave herself such hell for her own scared tendencies. Like she was somehow lesser for being nervous about the humans, about life and the world in general. There were brave things she did all the time. She had to give herself a bit more credit, Clem had a point. “I mean, if you want to. The seafood was really good.” She chirped with a little laugh as heat rose to her cheeks. “Eh—it’s not too bad. It’s a lot smaller than how busy places in China could be when I’d go out into the city.” She explained. “I think small is what I need.”

Snorting, Wren covered her mouth with her hand briefly, adjusting her sketchbook in her arms. “That’s a good thing to wish on him. He deserves it—and like a flat tire at the most inconvenient moments ever!” She said decidedly, kicking lightly at a rock on the sidewalk that sent it skipping over the warm concrete. “Oh, lots of things! I usually just—kind of start doodling and see where it takes me. Some have flowers, others have animals.” Her eyes sparkled in turn, watching the way Clem lit up. A smile pulled at her lips and she nodded eagerly. “Gecko, how cute. Send me a picture of him! I’ll put him on the rock. I can make one for him too—I’d love to give him his own little gift. Make my mark on him and all. I’d love to impress.” She laughed a little.

—

“Dude, you don’t have to thank me.” She knew that was an honest reaction; when somebody complimented you, you thanked them, but Clem didn’t feel like Wren needed to thank her for everything. “Just like, keep doing it, you know?” The town was bustling with people, far more than there’d been when Clem had parked her car. She’d lucked out, apparently. “Oh, you lived in China? That’s cool!” Clem felt a minor pang of jealously, only because she’d been stuck in Wicked’s Rest all her life. “If you have pictures and stuff, I’d love to see them. You can look shit up, but like… it’s always different when taken through the eyes of someone experiencing it, you know? Like, not for magazines and stuff.” She wasn’t sure if it made sense. 

“Oh, for sure. Flat tires, stubbed toes, wet socks. The list goes on and on.” She wondered if that there was somewhere in Wicked’s Rest that could make something like that come true. With the way the town was, it wasn’t an impossible thing. Clem nodded along as Wren went on to explain her art process. It was something she couldn’t ever figure out; art was a beast that she hadn’t ever tried to tackle, too afraid to be bad. (Which was so not punk rock of her.) “I’d love to see them if you ever wanna show me sometime!” It was said with so much enthusiasm that Clem felt her mouth sour. “Oh, here.” She pulled her phone out of her pocket, showing Wren her homescreen. It was of herself and Gecko, him laying over her shoulder, staring directly at the camera, as she kissed the side of his head. “He’d so love that. He loves hiding shit he finds.” 

— 

Wren nodded her head sharply once. She was right. Wren needed to just keep doing it. There was nothing better than to simply be. (She could very much think this now, but actually continuing to do it would be a whole different beast.) She let out a puff of air out, ruffling her errant strands of hair in doing so. “Oh! Yeah, I was born there and basically was there… well, until I came here to live with my brother after…” She gestured vaguely. Now was not the time to get into it. Besides, Wren wasn’t entirely sure how she would be able to explain away moving here because she attacked other sirens. It was a can of worms she didn’t want to open in the slightest. 

“Oh—I think I have some in my email! I will look. That’s how I used to keep in touch with my brother.” Wren also didn’t get a phone really until she was living with Eden. She had one to use occasionally, but the most learning came from when she came to Wicked’s Rest. “That definitely makes sense. It’s like, you’re experiencing it actually rather than the version that people try to show just to make it look all pretty.” A blush rose further, tinging the tips of her ears. “Of course! We can—well, whenever you come to my house I can show you them. Maybe along with some of my other drawings, if you want.” She smiled a little. Leaning in, Wren gasped softly as her shoulder bumped into Clem’s. “Oh my goodness! He’s sooo cute. You guys are adorable.”

—

Fiddling with the starburst in her mouth, she began to chew on it, nodding. The pang of jealousy she felt made her feel guilty. Clem smiled, glad to know that at least she made some sense. So far, the only person she’d ever met that really got her had been Jade. Maybe Wren could be that person with her, too. “See, you totally get it.” She was kind of glad she didn’t have to explain herself again, only  because she wasn’t sure how she’d explain it any other way. “That is cool, though. That you lived somewhere else, especially than here.” She’d never seen past Portland. She was constantly yearning for something else, but it felt unattainable. Now that she was a werewolf, it should’ve been easier to grasp, but it still felt like some far off land that she was capable of anything other than being the same old Clementine. 

“Hell yeah. I’d love to see them.” She tried to imagine the life Wren might’ve had in China, and if it differed from here in Wicked’s Rest. Was she another version of herself, or was she the same? Clem thought that if she lived somewhere else, she would’ve been different. But then again, wasn’t she exactly who she was  meant to be? “Cool! And then I can meet your brother, too.” She’d thank him for the sushi, or maybe she wouldn’t. Maybe Wren had taken his card without asking. Then again, with how nervous she was, maybe… not. She probably just had a good relationship with him, which Clem found herself also being mildly jealous of. “God, yeah. He’s the fucking coolest. Super chill, too.” She smiled down at the photo before she slipped her phone back into her pocket. “Do you have any pets?” They were close to her car now, and she could see the beat up civic ahead. 

— 

“It was nice. I mean—” Wren hesitated for a beat before ultimately just shrugging. “I think that there’s ups and downs to all. Lawn isn’t greener or whatever is said.” She smiled a bit, “Wicked’s Rest is weird. I’m not gonna say it isn’t because it totally is. Super weird. It also has some people I really like—and so many cool birds! China has cool stuff too, but also… I dunno. It has aspects I want to also forget, if that makes sense. Wicked’s Rest makes it easier to forget.” It was the closest she had gotten to the truth that Wren could manage without outright explaining, but did the job well enough. Nodding a little, Wren smiled once more. “I’ll definitely show you then. I’ll find my best for you.” She turned, walking backwards absently so that her eyes could stay on Clem’s face. She had a nice smile. It made her heart stutter a little in her chest, but she wasn’t about to dissect what that meant. No, thank you. “For sure—and yes! Well, she’s my brother’s, Eden. Her name is Moo Deng. She’s slimy, but very cute. You’ll love her.” She said happily, turning back around and skipping a little. “We definitely have to plot to use her to pester him. It’ll be great. Just like today! We’re going to have a great time today and any other time. I like that we hang out, Clem. I have a really good time with you.” Chancing a glance once more, Wren’s shy and small but there.

—

Clem nodded. That made sense. “No, I totally get it. Grass like, not being greener on the other side and stuff.” Maybe Wren’s relationship with the family there wasn’t good, and that was why she’d come to Wicked’s Rest. Maybe she missed her brother, or maybe there was something she was running away from. Should she have run away? After her father left? Maybe. But then where would she be? The idea that becoming a werewolf had only happened because she stayed sprinkled itself in as an afterthought, and she swallowed. When Wren mentioned birds, Clem laughed. “Yeah, I guess Wicked’s Rest does have that going for it.” There were a lot of things she hated about this stupid town, but the wildlife wasn’t one of them. “Running is like, much easier when you’re chasing down wienermobiles, I get it.” Maybe they’d see it while she and Wren were out together. “It’s a… mobile that has like, either hot dogs? Or maybe actual dogs, but it plays who let the dogs out like, super loud. You’ll know it if you see it.” 

As Wren walked beside her, now backwards, Clem couldn’t help but watch the ground, just to make sure that her friend wouldn’t fall. Would she collapse in embarrassment? Maybe. “Well, I’m looking forward to it!” She clasped her hands on top of her head, walking alongside Wren, looking towards her car. At the mention of the slimy pet, she scrunched her nose. “Moo Deng? Oh my god. I bought trading cards of Moo Deng. Not yours, but like, the hippo.” She’d spent way too much money on them, actually, but they’d been for a good cause! “Huh?” She looked at Wren, a smile pulling at the corners of her lips, a little wider this time. “Yeah, you’re cool, too. I’m glad that I got sat at your table.” She would have preferred it to any of the others, really, but getting to know Wren had been an act of fate, she felt. Like, the totally cool fate where you made a friend for life, type of fate. “I have a really good time with you, too.” The smile stayed intact as she pointed towards the civic. “That’s mine.” 

“I have to open it from the inside. The door’s like, broken or something.” Clem quickened her pace, getting into the driver’s seat, then reached across to unlock and throw open the door. “Totally not safe, I know, but like… it’s fine. The backdoors and this one all work!” She let out a nervous laugh before starting the engine. “Okay, so there’s this sushi spot that’s like, right by the water, and it’s really good. Wanna go there?” 

— 

“Wienermobiles… Fascinating. America really does have the weirdest things sometimes.” Wren noted absently. “Huh. Well, I’ll keep that in mind. Hot dogs or dogs. Or both? Regardless, it sounds like an interesting business model.” It didn’t seem like they’d make much money, anyway. She wasn’t a business man so she couldn’t truly judge or make that discernment, she supposed. A little shrug of her shoulders, Wren flashed another smile at Clem. She couldn’t really remember the last time she so freely smiled so much—so easily, even. It was like the fear that she normally carried around her like a looming cloud was gone for the time being. Maybe she would continue to not be afraid if she had someone she cared about so easily by her side. Their friendship really seemed to bloom in a way that Wren was far too happy about.

“Oh, yes! I’ve heard of the hippo. Our Moo Deng is a spirited gal in her own right. She understands our Mandarin too, so she’s a star like that—not that the other Moo Deng isn’t a star! She also is, but you know. I am biased because our Moo Deng is just so cute and sweet, even if she’s slimy.” She was rambling again. Wren swiftly shut her mouth, but felt herself light up almost instantly. “Me too! That was like, a total nightmare, but a worthwhile nightmare!” She chirped happily. Every day seemed like a total nightmare amongst most people in Wren’s world, but at least it was getting to a point where it wasn’t as much of a total nightmare.