#day two.

hi guys. guess who got art block and five billion projects? THIS GUY!!!! this is great. anyways was kinda stuck and didn't really like how this turned out so here's uhhh kinda favorite au/headcanon. butch jd lives in my mind and it's cool. i didn't do them justice... fuuuuck i wanna fix it but i already inked it ughghghgh. and yes i will tag the @heathersweek

draft and a doodle and a ref under cut :)

Devlin had already felt distant from her family and this cabin. And the events of the night, both before and during her sleep, hadn’t strengthened the connection at all. She felt incredibly distant. This was a place her family loved, that her grandmother treasured. And she was here, trying desperately to establish that connection for herself and she was only getting hurt. Physically now it seemed. Maybe that’s what led her to sitting on the couch, flicking through photo album Yana had found the day before. Looking through the good memories of her family members in hopes they might influence or override the quickly accruing not so great memories of her own. One photo that didn’t have a sleeve, resting against her stomach while she looked. Not really recognising any of the moments she was pictured in. 

A creak on the floorboards make her look up. She can’t help the sort of nervousness about her reaction, but she was trying to. But the nervousness releases when she sees that the sound has a source. Em. She gave a quick nod of her head in greeting before her eyes went down to the photos again. “ If you’re about to make some joke about my fingers, don’t. ” She warned, tone somewhere between a genuine warning and a joke. “ I’m not in the mood. ”

It was a stupid little thing, but stupid little things seemed to be perfect for occupying her time. Stupid little things weren’t wondering about her dream, or about her sleep walking, or about her scratching at the walls, or about the weather, or about all the things she’d been hearing, or about who carved that sigil into the table, or whose blood was on it, or about all her friends being worried or scared. So yeah, stupid little things were fucking awesome. Stupid little thing Devlin had currently moved onto: the downstairs bathroom sink. The day before Levi had mentioned it was leaking. She helped him find the tools to fix it but she never checked on it again. And if something was wrong, she needed to know so she could tell her cousin, right?

So, there she was. Waiting for whoever was in there to come out. She could hear water running, but it had been running for a little while. Whoever was in there was sure to come out soon. But they didn’t. It seemed forever. Dev leaned against wall behind her as she waited, but she was feeling especially impatient that morning. So, couple minutes passed, she’d caught herself picking at bandages at her fingers again, and her impatience grew frustrated. With a sigh she pushed herself off the wall, tired of waiting, and knocked four times against the door. “ There’s, like, limited hot water out here you know that, right? ” She called through the door, but the wasting of hot water wasn’t even the worst of it as she would swiftly find out.

When the door opened, the pieces immediately fell into place. Steam masked some of it, but Devlin wasn’t an idiot either. She’d used that trick back when she lived in the dorms too. Back before the fire. “ Are you kidding me? Were you smoking in there? ” Her tone was accusatory, she didn’t bother to hide it. She didn’t even think to hide it. Sure, everyone had their way of dealing with things. Devlin’s ways weren’t the healthiest either– but smoking up inside someone’s recently deceased beloved grandmother’s home felt like crossing a line. Even if it was pouring buckets outside.

After waking up on the cold, dark basement floor and, well, everything else Devlin had woken to, it certainly felt better to be clean. Showering with bandaids on your fingertips was awkward enough when it was just one, but the desire to feel clean pushed Dev to make it work. She’d washed herself to the best of her ability, changed into fresh clothes (her Elvis shirt felt somewhat tainted now), all that was left was to clean her face. She wiped cleanser from her face with cotton pads. Reaching for moisturiser next, anticipating the feeling before she realised. It was one thing to wash herself with the bandaids on, but an entirely different thing to stick a bandaid-ed finger into that little pot and wipe it all over her face. It caused her to pause. Given everything, it felt like the leaf about to land on the giant Jenga tower in her body that would cause it to finally tumble. Footsteps by the door distracted her from the impending doom of not being able to moisturise her face, making her look up. She felt ultra aware of all the sounds around her this morning. She wondered if the others felt the same. A partially halted breath makes its way out when she sees it’s Teddy. “ Hey, ” She greets, soft friendliness. She looks down at the open moisturiser in her hands, and looks up again, “ Uh, kinda dumb, ” all things considered, at least, “ But could you give me a hand? ” She holds out the small pot, “ I don’t wanna get moisturiser all in my bandaids. ”

Dev felt like shit. Shocker! Though she had managed to sleep, the state she’d woken in took away any potential rest and recovery the night had granted in the first place. She could sense the uneasiness growing amongst her friends, the same uneasiness that had quickly grown in her. And she felt somewhat helpless. Even if the rain let up, she wasn’t in any state to drive. Though her fingers had been cleaned and bandaged and she’d changed into some fresh clothes, she still felt like she was trembling if she let herself sit still for too long. She couldn’t really cook. With bandages on her fingers she’d worry about the cleanliness of the food and her healing skin underneath. And she couldn’t take back the night before. She couldn’t change her decisions, or turn back time. She didn’t even know that it would change anything.

So what could she do? Well, she had one idea that might make everyone feel at least a little better. From the storage room she collected a table cloth. An old plastic-y Christmas one with little Santas skiing around the trim. It wasn’t exactly on theme for this time of year, but it was the thickest one available. They couldn’t get rid of the table, not the sigil scratched into it. But they didn’t have to look at it. Less graceful without the grip of her fingertips, she tried unfolding it. Mid-frustration with a fold that refused to come undone when someone else entered the room. She looked up at the found of footsteps, relieved to see someone connected to them. “ Mind giving me a hand? ” She kicked out the end of the table cloth in his direction. Glancing to the table again before she explained, not sure if it needed explaining, “ I figure we can at least cover it. Might make us feel better. ”