#crowcut

there is a hint of fear that hums through eve's voice which feels so incredibly alien to her — it's not a case that things tend to work out for her, because bruised knuckles and mottled, dark rings around her eyes tell another story, but she knows, in an instinctive, base way, how to kick back against the wall she's pinned against. they're close — perhaps too close, and perhaps eve will curl the lower part of her lip when they take little more than a moment to look back on this — but viIIaneIIe touches over the sharp arch of eve's cheek and nods.

it's an invitation, if she's ever heard one — a pressure point in each wound where it doesn't feel good any more and just hurts. (but just before that point, there's a sharp hiss of contentedness. the precipice where euphoria blends into the sluggish gnawing hurt — that's the edge she lives in.)

"i will keep you safe, eve." a promise, an i-do, a cheap thrill wrapped in chanel and coursing through her entire being as she unfolds herself from under the desk and reaches for the sharp edge of the letter opener.

the next few minutes are unspoken, quiet as she slips through the creaking, half-ajar door. two thuds, hard, like the shattered weight of a slumped body jams it shut, and she returns wearing a subtle spattering of blood and a heavy scowl.

                         “don’t worry, eve. i will protect you from the evil board.”

        you don’t believe in that shit. you believe that people do as they want, and when they die, that’s that. you watch the light leave their eyes, and through however many times you’ve sat, prodded, and poked at the sack of flesh left behind before it starts to smell like shit and rot, you’ve never seen that glimmer of life return. you do however believe that you’d be the one nudging the board toward an answer of F-U-C-K  M-E  E-V-E just to gauge how blue in the face she’d go. it would be funny.

“you don’t strike me as the horror film type.”  the tropes change from horror to thriller - eve wouldn’t balk at the sight of pinhead or krueger, but you want to run your fingers through her hair whilst she inches closer into the shyamalan twist just to see if you can feel the way her brain works. (you know her so well. you know her better than she does. she shouldn’t fear the ouija board - it should fear her.)

🏃   /   catch  my  muse  stealing  valuable’s  from  your  muses  family  during  a  family  holiday  dinner

         the house is absolute insanity. with all three kids home, sophie tearing through her new cache of toys, and even roman and josephine stopping by, it’s easy to lose track of people. phil is busy in the kitchen, from which carol has been banned during the holidays for years. sasha and roman have been roped into helping sophie construct the absolute monstrosity of a dollhouse her grandparents bought. everyone else is scattered between the kitchen and living room and the house feels happier than it has in months. 

         she’s pulling extra napkins out of the closet when she sees the light on in the office. stevie had been in an odd funk the past couple of days. he must have just needed a moment of peace. she raps her knuckles against the door before pushing it open, just meaning to check in on her way back to the party. but then the door swings open and stevie whirls around, hands behind his back and a deer in the headlights look that stops her heart for a second. 

         behind him, she can see the safe door standing open and her stomach drops. there’s a long pause where neither of them move. nobody speaks. eventually, he opens his mouth and she holds up a hand. a few slow steps bring her to the safe, where she can see her gun, the small packet of documents with her passport and credentials, and a stack of cash that looks significantly smaller than the last time she checked. clearing her throat doesn’t quite clear the lump that’s settled there, and when a glance behind his back reveals a large handful of the missing stack, she couldn’t speak if she wanted to. 

         she takes it without comment, leafs through to count the bills. it’s a few grand, all of it the reserves from a job she had wrapped up a couple of weeks ago and hadn’t gotten around to depositing. it isn’t that she can’t spare it--all he ever had to do was ask. but here, in the middle of christmas dinner, he’s stealing money. all she’s ever tried to do was help him. she wants nothing more than for him to be better. he had been doing so well. and now this. 

          from the other room, phil calls her name. without thinking, she swings the safe door shut and listens to the lock click back into place. from the desk drawer she retrieves an envelope, stuffs the cash in, and passes it back to her son. he hasn’t said a word the whole time and she can’t decide if that’s better or worse. her name drifts in from the hall again, closer this time. she finds her voice then, calling back that she’s coming, give her just a second. 

she’s gone a little awol recently, scrubbing root from her loft and boxing everything up into one corner so she can ignore it. ( and she has, for the most part, been able to ignore it. ) but the machine still sends numbers, and still talks in her voice, and still calls her baby before shaw put her fist through the wall and the machine learnt it’s better not to. there’s only so much she can take, and lionel’s pouty i’m sorry about your girlfriend look was a little too much, and his you’re gonna regret not showing up for her speech just drove her further underground. ( they’re okay now, she thinks, because lionel clocked the fist-shaped hole in the plaster and the back end of the minutes she spent standing over her headstone. sorry, root. this isn’t my thing. )

                       so she’s back, and when she walks bear through the precinct towards his desk, she almost offers him something of a smile. almost. it doesn’t quite reach.

        “ figured you’d wanna say hi to my dog. ”    my dog, because she’s kept him. bear might’ve stayed with harold and john in the early days, but he curls up at the bottom of shaw’s bed like he was born for it.

        A few things come to mind, some pain, some nostalgia, some boxes in storage. Patty drags his fingertip in tight circles around the counter top, tracing the grain and his thoughts, his memories feeling fleeting and unused.        “Oh, we do and we don’t,” he says in that tight-lipped and postured way he’s learned to be. “We are very capable.”

     she doesn’t remember where she’s placed her patience in delicacy , and it shows in her silence , louder than the rain and it’s nervous patter on her windshield , than the radio aimlessly droning throughout the claustrophobic space between them . fingers work on the steering wheel , she’s got her daddy’s black eyes fixed onto the dashboard , as though she could find it there .     “     steve .     “     softly . it isn’t , but she still finds it .     “     i wish you’d called sooner .     “