#tappedstarter

     “Please don’t tell me you’re going to that dumb fucking vigil.”

She’d watched, honestly, more Gravemakers than she’d expected, head out of the house in order to go to the bullshit candlelit vigil from her perch on the windowseat in the common room, where she was sat with an ancient and heavily annotated copy of Thucydides and a rainbow of Beaux’s highlighters, and she still didn’t understand the appeal. None of the lower classmen had known Marcus, and the upper classmen like her who had knew that he wasn’t shit. Wasn’t worth mourning, from what she’d heard about him, from the little she’d seen freshman year of the way he interacted with people, they were all better off he was dead. 

She hadn’t even humored the idea, honestly; she’d heard about the vigil, sure, but had settled in for a normal evening getting some much-needed work done on her dissertation. She’d been neglecting it all week in favor of the Netflix account someone had left open on the house TV, and her advisor was starting to get antsy. But the sound of yet another person heading out of the house was enough to pull her out of the book in front of her.

     “Seriously?”

He didn’t understand how three years could simultaneously feel like a lifetime, and also no time at all.

The sight of the Morgue -- his old home, for three of the best years of his life -- brought him back instantly, as if nothing at all had changed in the time that had gone by, like the sight of it had pinched those long years into moments, as if he was still a twenty two year old, just about to graduate, coming home after a long day in the library. 

And at the same time, standing there, he felt ancient. He was still in his work suit, the rest of the clothes he’d shoved into a backpack last minute before he left still sitting on the back seat of his rental car, and the disconnect between the person he was now and the person he’d been the last time he set eyes on this house was.... stark, laid bare before him all at once, like this. 

But if he was going to be able to find a free place to stay for a few days without putting an even deeper dent in his savings, this was it. He just hoped, standing there dumbly, hesitating to knock on the damn door, that the Gravemakers would welcome him back with relatively open arms. 

Laura had to get away from all of it. From the vigil, the revelation, death, everything. It felt like she drowning in it and she couldn’t reach the surface. She hadn’t felt like it since the day she found out about her parents. The vigil was two days before, but Laura couldn’t shake it. The Morgue even felt like it was suffocating her, the place she called home felt like it was out to get her. That was how she ended up at Ray’s. It had become her escape from the chaos since her freshman year. She set herself up in a booth by the door, laying out her laptop and a textbook even though she knew no work would get finished.

The news blast from earlier that day kept flashing in her mind. The Red Avenger. Who could it be and why did they decide they would be Lovell’s masked vigilante? How did they know who did it? The door chiming caught her attention and made her raise a brow when she noticed who it was. She plastered a smile on her face, pushing whatever thoughts were plaguing her to the back of her mind. 

”The seats open if you want it. But first, you have to answer a riddle. A box without hinges, lock or key, yet golden treasure lies within. What is it?”

Julian hated getting impatient, but he’d meandered around the Fellows’ Square almost twice now, and the whole thing was getting ridiculous. He was supposed to sell thirty minutes ago to this sophomore kid, ‘friend of a friend’, but of course it could never be that easy. He should’ve just went home, but this tardiness and uncertainty was the nature of all drug deals, and Julian hated it. Hated when other people were in possession of his time.

Especially when he had other shit to be doing. Like fixing his car, editing a paper, hell getting up to something if any of his fellow members weren’t busy getting over that circus act of a vigil.  Anything other than shuffling around a bunch of buildings trying not to draw attention and checking his phone constantly. Security wasn’t letting up either, not after the whole ordeal that night. Julian held his animosity toward Abernathy for that reason alone. He couldn’t just go quietly. Death is unfortunate, murder much more so, but everyone who knew Marcus knew that his actions might have...gotten him into a situation he couldn’t get out of. The young man figured, if it were Queens, a guy like Abernathy would’ve crossed many with the means to hurt him. 

Julian resigned to a bench outside one of the old halls, eyes glancing at the pinkish light cast by the setting sun, then pulling out his phone once again. No new fucking messages... gritting his teeth, he sighed. When a figure approaches him fairly quickly he looks up at them  with wide-eyed expectancy, then lower with a hint of disappointment. Not him. “Hey.” he greets quickly. “You just gettin’ out of class?”

Kara was not a fan of being in large groups. The swarm of mourners took the wind out of her lungs and the words out of her throat. She didn’t know why she had even shown up. She didn’t know the guy. Maybe it was out of curiosity. Everyone else was going and she had a perpetual fear of missing out. If something happened, she wanted to be a part of it. Even if she was just a part of it from the back of the crowd. Taking it all in, watching from the sidelines, that was always something she had been good at. Over the years, Kara had gotten very good at blending into the background. 

Walking around was getting boring, and it was starting to look like nothing was going to happen. It was all people mourning or fake mourning. Kara kept a straight face. She shed no tears for the man she had never met before. 

She thought about leaving before she spotted Thomas through the crowds. They had spoken once before in the halls of the dormitory, but there was something about him that Kara liked. She had always been a shy girl, and she saw similar qualities in Thomas. Kara wanted to push herself, she wanted to get out of her comfort zone. Maybe this was her chance. Approach someone she didn’t know incredibly well, that surely was something she never would have done back home. 

Kara walked over to Thomas with her hands shoved into her pockets. She smiled softly and with her head slightly bowed she said, “Hey.” She lifted her head to meet his eyes, “How are you?” She looked around, hoping that the Pax Queen wouldn’t be anywhere in sight. She didn’t want to be shunned for speaking to someone that wasn’t a Gravemaker. 

Rachel: I'm sending this message to see if anyone moved 1. the backyard door knocker, 2. my pink frog flip flops, or 3. the class of '89's gift from the study. I found my Rothko painting in a strange place. Don't ask. I'm following a hunch.

While this might have been a ridiculous show of wealth, a way to parade just how much better Pax Aurea was -- and they were, it allowed him to see his sister Kara and it allowed him, most importantly, to watch his prey, because while the war was over -- Matias wasn’t so certain, and he certainly wasn’t going to let his guard down, they were called the Gravediggers for a reason, right? He wasn’t going to allow them to dig his grave though, maybe their own.

Matias watched as everyone interact, forcing himself to comply with the rules -- begrudgingly. He made his way down the golden staircase, his footsteps silent as he joined the rest of the partygoers. “Scotch, on the rocks.” he stated to the bartender, his glass quickly being filled as he sipped on it. He was hoping to find Kara using her as his excuse of interacting in case Emily asked him later, but he had lost sight of her. His fingers wrapped around the glass as he made his way down the hall in search of her, only to find another where they didn’t belong, “What are you doing here?”

Yes, he had known this brunch was coming for months, and yes, he had gotten shit-faced last night anyway, but he was starting to consider that she had arranged the date just to fuck with him. I mean, come on. What was he supposed to do? Not get in the car with that cute girl from his digital media class? Roll out onto the highway on the way to Columbus? Say ‘No thank you, I’d rather not attend a secret after hours party at the Aquarium. I hate penguins, because I’m a monster.’? Please. It was his birthday. And if every other day of Soren Moore’s life was memorable, November 27th had to be legendary. Beaux should know that. And she really shouldn’t have been surprised when she found him passed out on the living room floor in the morning. If anything, she should have been a little impressed he made it back to The Morgue in time to get to this knockoff Gossip Girl episode.

He puked up the rest of the (hopefully) strawberry daiquiri in his system and slowly, carefully, picked himself up off the floor. He didn’t need the mirror to tell him he looked like shit, but there it was, rubbing it in his face anyway. He pulled out drawers until he found a face cloth and used it to wipe away vomit-induced mascara tears and cold sweat, then brushed his teeth with the toothbrush someone had so graciously left for him on the counter. He figured it belonged to the same person whose room he had bee-lined through to get to this bathroom, but... what they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.

Satisfied with his readjusted trash-to-class ratio, he flipped down the toilet lid and took a seat. He pulled a joint from his inner breast pocket and lit it, eternally grateful to his sober past self for anticipating this hangover. That guy really knew how to take the edge off.

He was only a couple tokes in when he heard the bedroom door open. There was no point chucking a perfectly good doob, the bathroom was already too smoky to lie about, so he said a quick prayer that whoever it was would just leave. No such luck. The door swung open as if it was accusing him of breaking the truce itself, and he pasted on his best super-contrite puppy dog face. “Look, man,” He leveled, “This is for my health, I swear. Any way we could... keep this between us?”