#jacklevesque

There was a curl of smoke coming from the gallery of the theatre. It was the faintest tendril, dissipating and invisible under the stage lights, but as Pearl climbed the steps of the theatre, she could only just barely smell it. French cigarettes, smoked one after the other if her nose was correct. When she reached the furthest seats, she could see who was responsible for it. A scowling smoke stack made human, Jack Lévesque. She had come with the intention of finding an isolated place to finish some work, but she felt some relief in seeing that there was an opportunity for company. “Any chance I could bum a cigarette?” Pearl only smoked casually, and maybe even less than that. She’d mastered the art of not coughing up a lung with every drag in her first year at Augustine, and managed to keep that skill from atrophying too much at the parties thrown on campus. She came closer, sinking into the chair beside the long limbed boy without invitation. She knew by now he would never invite her to take a seat. “Were you having a quick brood?”

[Kieran] they were so much fun to listen to 

[PEARL]: play nice!!

[SYLV]: where are you anyways

“Stop.” She says it like it frightens her, and you can tell that it does, her fist is small when it is clenched, but the knuckles still turn white. He can see that she’s afraid, he can hear the quiver in her voice. She stands there, bird-boned. Milk skinned. When he looks up at her the anger that blooms in his chest, that blinding, terrible fury it dulls for a moment. A forest fire paused. There’s a whimper, and he looks down at the boy in his grasp. Pathetic, near pulp. “Please. Jack, please let him go,” she says again, reaching for him. Her fingertips even tremble. The kid makes a run for it, nose bleeding and lip split but safe for another night. She studies him even after the boy is gone, even when all that is left is spilled blood in the snow and vicious, ragged breath as his heartbeat evens. It’s not for his victim that she stopped him, it’s for the monster.

“You frighten me. Stay there.”