#renrps

For a person who hardly ever religiously carries her phone with her, Serra has little patience for the time Byrd takes to answer hers. Too many beeps; a radio silence that has lasted way too long for Serra to be okay with it. She’s been walking around the hotel room so many times that she wouldn’t even be surprised if she ended up leaving a permanent trail on the floor.

She’s tried to reason through it all. Byrd is in another state. She could be in the middle of the mission; there could’ve been minor setbacks (please, God, let them be minor) that forced her to focus on something else than keeping her phone in her hand the whole time. She could’ve forgotten her phone somewhere. And then she answers and every sensible reasoning Serra came up with during the past few hours flies straight out of the window.

“The next time you don’t answer your goddamn phone, I’m catching a flight there to tape it into your palm myself.” Byrd doesn’t laugh. She doesn’t scoff or tell her she’s overreacting, which all pushes that knife of discomfort in Serra’s gut all the way deeper. Something went wrong, but she can’t say it out loud.

Serra lets the silence of the line linger. Just like she refuses to say goodbye when one of them leaves, she keeps the words on the back of her mind now, too. I miss you. I was worried about you. Don’t disappear on me again or I’ll gut you like a fish. She digs her heels into the carpet under her feet and then licks her lips before speaking again.

“Run away with me.”

“Stella,” she murmured. Beatrice took a step towards her, hand raised ready to reach out for her, but stopped. For a second, her outreached hand stood still in the space between them, but Bee let her hand drop back to her side. As much as she wanted to take comfort in Stella, and as much as she wanted to comfort Stella in turn, Bee didn’t trust herself not to do more damage than she had already done. 

“It would be so easy to just do that, wouldn’t it?” she asked, her face falling into a sad smile. “But you know we can’t. We can’t just leave them behind to deal with my mess. I killed… I killed them for what they did to Leah, and now we’re marked targets. We’ve essentially declared war, and it’s my fault. I just couldn’t–I couldn’t control it, and now it’s done.” 

His anger is so palpable it’s like he’s twisting himself inside out just by holding it in. He’s let himself become a ruin. Like one of those dusty cities that get caught in the teeth of time; crumble and get covered by sand. He’s a ruin of memories he so desperately held on to for years in the hopes of them one day not hurting so much, but now they’re just boiling right under his skin and it hurts. It actually hurts.

But now she’s standing in front of him and he can’t let her see that.

She knows he’d do anything for her. She must know. Of course she does. She wouldn’t have come for his help if she didn’t – be it all about using that knowledge to her advantage or not. And with the weight of a few years pressing down on his shoulders it’s hard to think the latter would even be an option.

He licks his lips and quickly slips his tongue back into his mouth before his tight jaws bite into it. He’s been keeping his temper at bay, fallen back behind that iron mask she accused him of hiding under. ‘Emotionless robot,’ that one he can remember more than well. But then that dam breaks; the mask cracks. She acts like there’s nothing uncomfortable to remember, and he breaks.

“Did you even care?” She snaps her attention to him, her brows creased, but he doesn’t pay it much attention. “About me? Did you ever stop to think what it would be to wake up to an empty apartment with all your things still there? The calls not even connecting? Because you come back and tell me to remember all the things we’ve been through, when you were the one who left without so much as a fucking note.”

She opens her mouth, maybe to argue, but he doesn’t give her the chance to even get started.

“Do you have any idea what it was like?“ He knows his face is twisting into an expression that’s somewhere between disgust and hurt, and even to him the line has become so blurry he doesn’t bother giving it another thought. “To not know why you left or where you went? If you were even alive?”

She stands up, seems to be about to take a step closer but he just shakes his head and takes a step back. He hates the sound of her voice when she says his name, and ends up letting out a bitter laugh at it.

“I built a home with you, for fucks’s sake,” he scoffs with contempt seeping through and shakes his head, has to look away from her. His eyes are burning, and he’s clenching his jaws so tight it’s starting to hurt.

In the lack of something to say he goes silent for a good while. The anger drains out and leaves him feeling hollow, his raised heartbeat pounding in his ears. She doesn’t try to come closer again, but with his eyes turned away he can’t tell if she’s even looking at him. Maybe she isn’t. Maybe she’s hurt and can’t bear to. Something about the thought makes him feel better and worse at the same time.

He breathes in, tries to swallow but his mouth feels too dry for it. He licks his lips in an effort to ease it. It doesn’t help.

“You don’t just leave,” his voice cracks, no matter how hard he wants to keep that stupid sadness from rising to the surface. It’s wet and it’s hot and it lodges itself to his throat  “If you give even one shit about someone, you don’t just take off in the middle of the night. You just -” he drops his eyes to the floor again, bites his teeth and shakes off what suspiciously feels like a broken heart.

Karen, you opalescent tree shark, it’s been closer to a year since I started talking with you. Sure, there was a period of rambling and uncontrollable screaming via messages -- and turtles in sweaters (which I still think has to be one of the cutest things anyone’s ever sent me pls) -- but about a year back you came and headbutted your way into my life and I’m so fucking happy about it. There literally hasn’t been a day since when I wouldn’t have talked with you, which is just lowkey insane if I’m totally honest with you. SO WHILE we may bicker like an old married couple or grumpy old men living next door to each other and may or may not want to bite each other’s heads off sometimes, you’re the person I’d call if I had murdered someone and needed someone to hide the body.

You are the the C-3PO to my R2-D2, the Sarah to my Cosima, the Daenerys to my Jorah, the Ann to my Leslie, and about a hundred and one things more. You’re the most beautifully stubborn person I’ve ever met, anD as much as you hate it when I get all mushy, you’re just going to have to deal with it now because this is a very public announcement that you’re my best friend, a beautiful, talented, brilliant, powerful musk ox, and I love you.

But now, after forcing you to go through all that, ENOUGH WITH BEING ALL GROSS N GOOEY, AND LET’S GET TO THE ACTUALLY INTERESTING PART OF THIS THING, because this is the official opening act to Karen’s bday bash 2k16. For the next 24 hours I will be posting one thing every hour or my queue is if it won’t fail me and make this announcement 100% useless, and while I know it’s nothing compared to what you did for me last October, I hope it will bring even some joy to your day.

"I can't do this."

Jasper had long ago mastered the art of indifference, though this time was a challenge. She was always making these threats, tossing out ultimatums, begging him to open up only to taunt him by giving up or running away. It was a vicious cycle, and one that kept his heart and mind exhausted on a daily basis. Some would call it unhealthy, most would say it was toxic, but for him it was the very air he breathed.

There was a knot in the pit of his stomach. They both knew he would never let her go; not really. Yet he couldn't give her what she wanted, and he knew how this act played out. They'd done it a million times before, and they would continue to reprise this scene until their dying breath. She was impulsive and destructive, but his cruelty could not be matched.

"Then go."