drunk and driven by the devil's hunger

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

“How… poetic,” Stella took the time to conclude, unsure of it she needed to find a way to backtrack or simply move on now that she had clearly made Jamie uncomfortable.

With each new piece of the puzzle that the male revealed to her, she was able to put together a fuller picture. Jamie was much more than the sarcastic goth that he presented himself to be - he was kind and caring (when needed), with a clear need to feel self-sufficient. He was smart, but that could be masked by assumptions from his accent and his weird affinity for cryptids. He was morbid, but she was pretty sure even he understood limits. And now she knew he liked deep diving into stories, unearthing truths.

He was also a senior. Would they keep in touch when he graduated? Or was their friendship now on borrowed time? That particular piece of the puzzle had yet to be discovered, and so Stella resolved to try the ‘moving on’ option, for Jamie’s sake.

He beat her to it, however.

“Wishful thinking on your part,” she barely had time to insist before Jamie had put some distance between them. Enough that it was clear to her, at least, that they had reached the intermission of their meal. Would Jamie come back with twelve slices of cake? Six more flans? Another basket of bread? Tough to say, but Stella took advantage of the break, locating the silverware and grabbing what she needed before sliding back into her chair.

She had just stuffed a bite of lasagna in her mouth when Jamie reappeared, several drinks balanced in his hands. And one of them was clearly for her.

Kind and caring? Check.

“Thanks,” she nodded, reaching for the water. One sip later and she was speaking up again.

“To answer your earlier question, because you ditched before I could get to it - no, most romcoms do not have serial killers. But do most slasher films not also have romance? Isn’t that what’s supposed to make it hurt for the final girl or whatever? That it’s someone they never saw coming because they were blinded by love? You say that you’re contented, so obviously I won’t push, but if you hadn’t added that part in and had instead relied on movie logic, you would have lost this fun little debate. I don’t believe for a second that a serial killer is part of your personal contentment, though. Your shock value statements do not work on me, Jamie Ward.”

--

Jamie stuffed his mouth with lasagna, desperate for reprieve from the awkwardness of conversation. He wasn’t used to the whole talking thing, even if he liked to do it. Stella, for the most part, had proven herself a good listener. She was more curious than judgmental, accepting the simple answers he gave more often than she questioned them. And while she might’ve not understood all of his references, she would by the next day if he didn’t tell her by the first.

Jamie always liked to tell her on the first day, though, never one to give up the opportunity to school someone on something.

“Ah, but you’re mistaken,” he pointed out with his fork. “Slasher films have one goal and it’s to kill its whole cast for our entertainment and in order to establish character in a short amount of time, they offer us cheap, hasty snapshots of interpersonal relationships to make them sympathetic, and therefore, relatable to us the viewer. I wouldn’t call it romance. Besides, the iconic final girl is only the final girl because she’s driven to survive after watching all her loved ones die, not because she’s in love.”

He seemed to come alive as he rambled on about movies and tropes, encapsulated by his own thoughts on the matter like a critic on a message board. Watching movies was one of his favourite modes of escapism. He couldn’t hide his enthusiasm for them behind a stony face and marinara sauce.

“...I’m still in debate on whether the final girl is a feminist trope or if it’s just another way of re-wrapping a tragic narrative while continuing to strip a character of their own autonomy but people seem to eat it up anyway. We should watch Black Christmas, that one passes the test, I think. For horror chick flicks. Still no romance though.”

By the time he was finished, Jamie looked at ease again and sated too. He mopped up the sauce remaining sauce on his plate with a piece of bread before shoveling that into his mouth too. His lunch tray looked like a warzone, littered with tissue balls and crumbs. Jamie grabbed another napkin from the dispenser and wiped his mouth before adding it to the pile.

“You’re right,” he said, pushing his tray aside to lean onto the table. “I am disappointed that he’s only killing blonde women. It’s the blonde men who are the problem. I know what I’m writing into the next legend we make up.”

—

Henry followed Jamie’s gaze, peering through the window back into the bar. His coach wasn’t his favourite person on earth but he felt a certain amount of loyalty towards him. So part of him resented Jamie’s assessment of the man. He could be a bit intense, single-minded, and yes, a hypocrite. But it was a long jump from there to sex offender.

     “Forgive me if I don’t think you’re the world’s best judge of character,” he said flatly. For one, Jamie didn’t seem to like Henry very much, and he wanted to back himself.

Henry watched, half in awe, half in horror as Jamie launched into some kind of deranged soliloquy. He wasn’t even sure how this was related to what he had just said. He frowned, trying to find the link between Jamie’s monologuing about ‘demon lords’ and exercise. But he was drawing a blank.

When he finally finished speaking Henry didn’t even have an adequate response prepared, still trying to digest the speech. His cigarette was burnt down to the filter, as he blinked at his tutor.

     “You want to be possessed by a demon…?” Henry asked, his eyes narrowing, genuinely unable to tell if Jamie was joking or not. From their interactions, he would not have described him as prone to humour. If anything he was rather humourless. He had to be joking, or he was more deranged than Henry had originally pegged him for.

     “Are you drunk or something?” he asked, his voice more wary this time. Whilst this hadn’t been the greatest conversation of his life, he was suddenly much more eager to extricate himself from it.

--

Jamie would’ve been lying if he didn’t enjoy the look on people’s faces whenever he got a bit carried away. Myths and demons had once been his safety blanket growing up, Baal and Belial his dutiful guardians and the Mothman, his estranged best friend. As an adult, they weren’t so much figures he spoke to in his bedroom anymore, but plastic toys he threw at people like Henry who just didn’t get his profound metaphors. It was mostly a waste, but sometimes it was entertaining. 

“Everyone wants to be immortalized, Kirkpatrick. Some of us just have better modes of achieving it than starving outside of the home of tapas and chicken wings like a Victorian paper boy.”

Jamie gave him a derisive look at the mention of being drunk, like it was absurd that he could possibly come up with that conclusion. Henry was sounding a little demoralized, which only meant it was time for Jamie to go in for the kill. Maybe if he couldn’t convince Henry to get a snack, he’d at least scare him back to doing the rest of his algebra homework.

He raised a hand, his long pale fingers adorned with tiny silver skulls like death itself, and dropped it onto one of Henry’s strong, broad shoulders.

“Unfortunately not. I was hoping I could find a drink out here but you’re looking a little anemic. I suppose... beggars can’t be choosers though, can they?”

“This is a bar, people are drinking… alcoholism is not a character flaw,” Griffin slurred. “I mean… alcoholism is bad… but being an alcoholic… also bad. Temporary alcohol-ing… You know, it’s not my fault vampires are teetotalers by nature and you only drink the blood of slaughtered lambs.” 

Griffin was expressly ignoring any insults and the mention of intimate prison romance. He watched Jamie pace back and forth, focusing on the blurred image by following the lit cigarette like the ball in a Wimbledon match. 

“I’m not a curious person,” he said. “I think some questions can’t be answered and some answers we’re better off not knowing. Sorry if you find that disappointing.”

Why was he apologizing to Jamie? He didn’t care what Jamie thought of him. In fact, he spent 99% of their conversations making sure Jamie knew he didn’t care. In 12 pt Times New Roman double-spaced font. Perhaps alcohol really was a horrible vice.

The more Jamie ranted, the more it drew Griffin in, like it always did during meetings over articles for The Report. Jamie was an entertaining image, like something out of a noir film with a cigarette dangling from his lips as he speculated on recent crimes. Griffin didn’t think he could stand up and escape without falling back over, so all he could do was play along.

“We can’t pickpocket Schaefer,” he argued. “It’s an electronic keycard, there’s bound to be a record of people who swipe in and out. We’d be busted before we had a chance to save Rapunzel from the tower… or whatever.” He lifted a finger to make a genius point, but intoxication caused his hand to sway, lessening the desired effect. “What we ought to do is convince Lanie we need it. She’s already given us one set of keys, what’s one more? She’s weak and no way she rats on us.” 

--

“Temporary? If you can’t tell when to stop now, how do you expect to know when to stop ever? You’re delusional if you can’t see that collegiate binge drinking is a gateway to excess.”

Jamie shot a glare at Griffin. He really hated drunk people, but drunk academics were proving themselves to be a degree worse because they made some sense. Were funny, even, if Jamie was inclined to laugh. 

“All questions can be answered if you’re persistent enough. Whether you like the answer or not is a different story,” he argued. It was always like this. Griffin, aloof and detached and Jamie, the passionate and overgrowing flame. He spent his days trying to ignite fires, hoping something would catch. Apparently, alcohol did help, but not in the way he wanted.

“You’d rather frame Lanie than Schaefer?” Jamie balked. It wasn’t as if he had any particular attachment to Lanie the Housing Dean. She was... okay, he supposed, even if she was a bit sunny for his liking. Lanie had once sent him a picture of a cat with  big eyes and a patch of white fur on its chest that was shaped like a skull and cross bones. Reminded me of you! ^_^ Also, please turn down your music~!

Jamie had turned down his music for a whole week after that, uncertain whether it was due to Lanie or the cat. 

“How exactly do you plan on convincing Lanie that we need the key to the library basement? I highly doubt she’d buy Satanic occult rituals, even though I’m almost certain she’s a witch. Has to be. There’s no way she can be in so many places at once without teleportation.”

┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛

Griffin opened his mouth like an offended guppy when Jamie poured the sweet nectar he’d been downing all night out onto the pavement. That had been like… five dollars. Plus tip. His uncle may have been bankrolling his tuition, but otherwise Griffin was working with a cashier’s salary… Jamie owed him a coffee in the future, at the very least. A fact he would definitely remember tomorrow. Probably.

He attempted to swat the hand away from his face, but his limbs had turned into very dense noodles, so he only managed to grab Jamie’s arm and hold onto it for some balance. “I don’t care that any of this is a chargeable crime,” he argued, brow furrowed either with anger at the situation or frustration at his lack of bearing. “I would do well in prison. I could teach inmates how to read and write their letters of appeal for a pack of ramen noodles. ‘It is not a matter of permission or prohibition. He will suffer if he is sorry for his victim…’”

Quoting Crime and Punishment may have been more on the nose than Kerouac, but even sober Griffin had trouble reeling in his pretension. He wobbled slightly before bumping into the wall again, sliding down it this time into a much more stable seated position.

“I’m tired of being responsible for the bad things that happen to other people,” he grumbled. He took his glasses off his face, in the hopes it would have an effect contrary to their purpose and fix the swimming of his vision. “What do you suppose we do - play the Baker Street Irregulars and solve the murder so Mr. Holmes will award us with a slice of bread? I don’t know the first thing about investigating a crime… I highly doubt anyone else in the group does either. Maybe Silas or Topher have learned tips and tricks in the Criminal Justice department, but…” 

He blew air out of his mouth derisively, hoping that would suffice as an ending to that conjunction. 

--

Jamie was too incensed by Griffin’s easy defeat to flinch when he used his arm as a rail. Instead, he grabbed him by both shoulders and jostled him as if he might rattle his sensibility back into place. “You would not do well in prison, Baxley. They’d be putting things in your mouth before you could spit out another stupid literary quote. You’d be someone’s wife.”

It was his turn to furrow his brow as he watched Griffin deflate into the ground like an old basketball. Jamie threw up his hands, exasperated. 

“Then don’t be,” he told him, sounding short about it. “But getting wasted at the bar is as much punishment as being responsible, and I’d say one of them is far more befitting of you than the other.”

Shaking his head, Jamie turned away from Griffin and searched through his pockets for the reason he’d come outside in the first place. Smoking was a bad, expensive habit, but Jamie figured he deserved it by then. He stuck a cigarette into his mouth and lit it. The red, hot cherry bobbed at the corner of his lips as he spoke.

“I’m not saying we do it for justice, but aren’t you curious? ‘Cause I am. Why us? Why now? Most of us are on the brink of graduation. Seems like a big fucking coincidence if you ask me.”

He paced in front of Griffin, billowing smoke like a chimney as he gesticulated to no one in particular. Jamie spoke with his hands like the rest of his family, only he wasn’t punching anyone in order to get his point across. “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. That’s what Sherlock said and I think that’s as good of a place to start as any. First, we need to figure out what’s beneath the library.”

Jamie stopped and stared at the fluttering doors of Home Grown, watching the light flicker in and out with every person who passed through it. 

Jamie was probably right in his assessment of Coach Catton’s academic credentials. Less so about what he got up to in his private life, or at least Henry could only hope. Maybe he wasn’t totally correct in all of his advice. But he couldn’t have been all wrong either. Henry had never been able to lift as much at the gym as he currently could and he’d beat his personal best 5k time twice since the semester had started. So he had to be onto something. 

     “Hypocrite yes, probably. Sex offender? I think you need proof before you start making those allegations.”

Henry didn’t particularly like the way Jamie was watching him. He felt like he was trapped under a microscope, offered up for scientific observation. He frowned, an expression that deepened into a disgusted scowl when Jamie spat on the ground between them. He mentally took back any remotely positive comments he’d had regarding Jamie’s manners.

     “You told them you had a fake leg?” Henry said, smiling despite himself as he looked down at Jamie’s twirling ankle. It was objectively kind of funny, his amusement had nothing to do with his tutor in particular.

     “You do know exercise is good for you, right? Skipping gym isn’t going to do you any favours in the long run. You’re smart, you should know that,” he chastised, a little mockingly, not missing an opportunity to turn some condescension back on Jamie. 

     “I think that’s just the first item in a long list of ways in which we are not alike. Smoking might be the only thing we have in common.”

--

“I have eyes, Kirkpatrick,” Jamie said, rolling his as he turned towards the window of Home Grown. The crowd no longer felt overwhelming with the glass and brick between them. Outside looking in had always been Jamie’s preferred perspective.

Coach Catton was where Jamie had said, sat by the bar and nursing a drink like any other man. There didn’t seem to be much about him that looked suspicious aside from the fact that he was throwing back Manhattans in a Cambridge bar and getting a bit red in the face. There was a halo of empty space around him, save for one other man. Jamie seemed to be looking at that specifically, pointing at it like it was something profound. 

“Just look at him. You’re telling me that dude right there isn’t going to end up in The Globe for a college sex scandal? Please. I know a Canary Man when I see one.”

Jamie cut Henry a look when he smiled like he’d brandished a knife, suspicious and uncertain of whether to take it in kind. He took one last drag of his cigarette before tossing the cherry onto the pavement and crushing it underfoot. It was hard to read his expression from behind the veil of smoke billowing from his nostrils, but the low rumble could only be amounted to Jamie’s dark, hollow laughter.

“That’s where you’re mistaken,” he said, matter-of-factly. “My body is in its prime state at all points of time. How, you ask? Because I’ve made the calculations. As long as my exterior looks presentable to mankind, it doesn’t matter what’s going on inside all of here and rot-- rot is the perfect bait for for Beezlebub, Lord of the Flies. You see, demon lords don’t discriminate or care what I put in my body. They don’t care about anything aside from their own ambition, so... when He decides to grace this mortal realm and needs a vessel, I’ll be ready to accept him in mine, feast and all.”

Jamie spoke with grandeur, like he was weaving a majestic tale. In another life, he might’ve been a great performer. A thespian with enough dramatic flair to captivate a full auditorium. But as it were, he just came off a bit strange gesturing outside of a party with an audience of one.

“...And you know what lasts longer than people? Demons.”

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

King Jamie of Unsatisfactory Answers was at it again that day, clearly, with how little she was getting from him, and were it any other question, maybe she would have been pouting less. However, she was but a baby bird, still working on fully understanding the strength of her own wings as she attempted to leave the nest. Her self-confidence was still a little fragile, and hearing that someone (or even multiple someones) had been questioning her choice of company threw her off her game.

“People,” she repeated, eyes narrowed as she tossed her own slice of lasagna onto her tray.

Huh.

She left Jamie as she moved to craft a side salad, attempting to come up with her own list of possible inquirers. They weren’t parted for long, and her brainstorming was unsuccessful. However, by the time they were reunited, Stella knew there was no point in pursuing the question further. It did not cross her mind that if Jamie was hoping to avoid people asking why they were hanging out, that they should not be publicly dining together at a campus hotspot. She simply accepted it and worked to move on.

At least they could still riff on the type question. And perhaps Jamie would actually be open to a real chat about it, given that he would have nowhere else to run while he shoved lasagna, bread, flan, etc. into his body.

“I would actually love to hear your full definition of fun,” Stella echoed, setting her own tray down on the table before she let her eyes flit about the room to find both the location of the cups for water and silverware. In previous years she hadn’t spent a whole lot of time in the dining hall, preferring the comfort of her dorm room and DH takeout boxes instead. It wasn’t like her dining hall debut was with Jamie, but she also didn’t have a clear map of the space in her mind yet.

She wasn’t able to truly concentrate on the task, though, because Jamie’s response to her teasing about being his type was… odd. Off enough that the male actually required her full attention. What was with that expression?

“The lady doth protest too much, methinks,” she tried to continue to joke, but it was falling flat. Why had his response been so weird? She wasn’t… that bad, was she?

“You can relax. I was joking. And I’m invested because I want the people I like to be happy. I realize that doesn’t mean that they need love, but it sure does seem to help when times are tough in romcoms. And considering how there’s a potential serial killer on the loose, times aren’t not tough right now.”

--

Jamie froze momentarily when Stella pressed him, cheeks pillowed with cheesy pasta. He had once yearned for someone to just ask him what he liked and cared to know him, only now that there was someone asking, he wasn’t sure what to say. History had taught him that oversharing either made people uncomfortable or extremely interested. Neither things he was particularly equipped to handle at the moment.

The lasagna went down his throat in one big lump. He then too was looking for the water.

“I enjoy experiencing stories. Reading them, watching them in movies, hearing about them in song. It’s interesting to see what kind of things are hidden beneath other people’s metaphors.”

Jamie shifted in his seat, looking more and more uncomfortable by the second. He felt a bit exposed, even if he’d only given her a watered down version of what he really did for fun. Admitting that he enjoyed sticking his nose into things no one wanted him to see would’ve been like admitting that he enjoyed bickering with Griffin. It was an unspoken fact of Jamie.

The discomfort disappeared under a skeptical look when he noticed how Stella had faltered. 

“Were you? If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you sounded a little hopeful there,” he said. “Do they normally have serial killers in the romcoms you’re watching?”

Furrowing his brow at her double negatives, Jamie took it as his cue to get up and grab some water for the both of them. He stopped by the drink cooler and picked up two cartons of milk while he was at it, just to buy himself a bit more time to think of how not to hurt Stella’s feelings before returning to the table.

Jamie placed the drinks down. One for her, three for him. “While I appreciate your efforts, I am already... contented,” he explained carefully. “Being at school stimulates me in ways a lover never could and now, as you’ve said, we have a serial killer too. What more can a guy ask for?”

     “I just am,” he snapped irritably, “I don’t think you really care anyway.”

Maybe he would care, if Henry ended up being kicked out because of his abysmal grades and his steady stream of income was cut off. But he was pretty sure his physical wellbeing was very low on Jamie’s list of priorities. His financial health was probably much higher. 

He fought not to roll his eyes, again, as Jamie clearly debated whether to give him a cigarette. It was one smoke, how much could it really pain him to share it with him. If he was clearly content to strike up a conversation with Henry, the least he could do was share.

     “Not officially,” he said, placing the cigarette between his lips and muttering, “Thank you.”

He handed the lighter back to Jamie, ignoring the fact that he had just compared him to a fish.

     “Well it’s either this or drinking. And I don’t really feel like drinking right now. Coach doesn’t like it, but he likes it even less when we gain weight. And there’s a hell of a lot less calories in a cigarette.”

He shrugged, taking a long drag on the cigarette. 

     “You smoke too, I don’t really think you’re in a position to judge me.”

He didn’t actually know, but he would have bet good money that Jamie didn’t bother having the same commitment to exercise and eating properly as he did.

--

“I don’t, but I am curious,” Jamie said, watching him with renewed interest.  Jamie was like a nosy house cat, perturbed by loud noises, but curious nonetheless. Hostility was familiar grounds for him, only he couldn’t parse what was eating at Henry. Was it the emotional taxation of secrecy? Or was it the burden of plotting murder? 

Apparently, it was neither. Henry needed an Oh Henry. 

Jamie had heard all about the woes of athleticism before. After growing up next to Johnnie and being forced to field his anxieties about his tiny calves, he liked to think that he had a good idea that most jocks were completely delusional. If physics had taught him anything, it was that Caloric reduction on top of a high-energy lifestyle only meant resource deprivation. It was simple math, but he shouldn’t have expected so much from people who had such vain goals.

“I don’t think your coach has seen the inside of a classroom in his life,” he told him plainly. “Dude’s a hypocrite who looks like he belongs on a sex offenders list and if I’m not mistaken, that was him in there by the bar.”

Jamie spat on the ground between drags like he couldn’t stand the taste of tobacco lingering in his mouth longer than he needed it to. He didn’t look particularly pleased to be smoking, like it pained him just to inhale.

“You and I are not remotely alike. I, for one, am not an athlete. I haven’t taken a PE class since middle school.” Jamie waved his cigarette as he talked like he was teaching a lesson, the smoke billowing notes in the air. He looked a little smug when he added, “Forged a doctor’s note clearing me of strenuous physical activity in high school due to a compactor accident. Technically, this leg is fake.”

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

“Oh, I’m nowhere near twenty,” Stella insisted, stepping out of Jamie’s way only so he could lead the way to their destination. Her offer to purchase food could mean anything from Marie’s to the Dining Hall to the swankiest place in town (that would admit them without black tie dress). Somehow she didn’t see the latter in their future, though… at least, not if Jamie knew anything about the portion sizes of the top 10%. “You didn’t answer the most important one, though, which was who is asking you about us hanging out?”

She likely should have known that he would not give her a simple, straightforward answer to the other question that she had asked, but they’d not seen each other all summer. For about thirty seconds she’d eagerly awaited gleaning a legitimate piece of new information about Jamie from their conversation. Then he’d said ‘unmoving’ and Stella had to stop walking and glare.

“I’m sure that I don’t need to inform you that necrophilia is wrong. Cold, quiet girls that are generous and dedicated to the advancement of science and discovery can be living too. And you might even enjoy some back-and-forth conversation. I suppose a cadaver will never tell you that mothman isn’t real, but you don’t just talk to people to hear what you want, do you?”

Thankfully, Jamie did not live far from the Dining Hall. It had taken them almost no time at all to arrive, swipe in (with Stella swiping twice to fulfill her end of the bargain even though Jamie had used a loophole), and make their way to the food. However, Stella wasn’t about to let the male out of their promised (sort of…) conversation that easily.

“It’s a buffet. Go crazy. But you’re the one carrying it to a table,” she insisted, swiping a slice of the baguette Jamie had gestured to so he could not, in fact, take the whole basket. “As for your type, I understand being focused on the future. I am too. But you can still have a moment or two of fun in the present. Oh, unless you’re not telling me because I’m the girl of your dreams slash your perfect type. Oh, Jamie, I’m flattered. You could have just been honest from the get-go, though, instead of insisting I be dead first.”

--

“People,” Jamie told her, sounding short about it. He’d charged Henry a premium to keep their tutoring sessions a secret and although Jamie would’ve sold his honor for a price, he didn’t think Henry would’ve appreciated being outbid by lasagna. 

He grabbed a tray and made his way to the buffet line. Having free access to food was one of the many luxuries of attending Henrietta that Jamie was never able to get used to. The first time he had dinner there, he’d stockpiled his plate full of hotdogs thinking that they’d run out only to find that once the tray was empty, another one was brought in. It was a poor kid’s paradise. Jamie still stacked his plates with food whenever he had the funds to eat on campus, mostly for the thrill of seeing more come out of the kitchen. 

“I do, actually. Why do I need to listen to anyone else when I already know that they’re wrong?” he asked with no intention of getting an answer when he was distracted by the shiny, wiggly exterior of what looked like upside-down pudding. Jamie grabbed a helping of that too before making his way to an empty table.

“Who says morbid discovery and grueling coursework isn’t fun? Have you met me on a Saturday night? Looking up weird stuff on the internet is the definition of fun.”

He furrowed his brow at Stella when she swiped a piece of bread from his horde of carbs before looking plain confused. Jamie stalled, uncertain of how to digest what had come out of her mouth. Clearly, Jamie had underestimated Stella’s conversational prowess with how quickly the tables had turned.

“I said cold and quiet, didn’t I? I don’t think you quite fit the bill,” he said, trying to sound polite about it, even when his face was screaming discomfort. “Why are you so invested in this?"

Henry didn’t know if he was touched or aggravated by Jamie’s apparent investment in his academic career. It probably had more to do with the hundreds of dollars Henry was paying him each week and less to do with him actually caring. Still, Henry could probably do with channelling some of that. Jamie was right, he couldn’t flunk out. It was game over if he did.

     “Yeah, yeah I know,” Henry rolled his eyes. He was well used to this spiel from Jamie at this point.

He watched as Jamie lit a cigarette making a flamboyant show of it, for a reason that Henry couldn’t determine. He wasn’t even entirely sure why they were having a conversation. Henry would have been happy to come out here and stand side by side in total silence. Maybe Jamie Ward had better manners than he’d thought.

Well, he thought that until Jamie started rambling on about how there was most likely a murderer in their midst. Which meant he was still pushing hard on that theory. Despite what he insisted whenever the topic was brought up, Henry was growing less confident in his ‘coincidence’ theory. But he wasn’t prepared to claim that they had a serial killer on their hands.

     “You sound like you’ve given it a lot of thought.” Henry said, frowning. He still remembered the accusation Jamie had thrown at him in the library. Trying to trip him up or catch him out, like he could possibly have something to do what was going on. Maybe it was all clever deflection.

If it was deflection it was working, as he deftly distracted Henry with a comment about his appearance.

     “Yeah, well, I’m tired,” he said flatly. Not being able to sleep more than a few hours a night, plus the amount of exercise he did in a day would do that to a person. But he wasn’t interested in having Jamie dissect that. He pointed at the packet of cigarettes Jamie was putting back in his pocket.

     “Can I have one of those?” he asked, adding as an afterthought, “Please?”

--

“Why? You’re clearly not spending late nights studying,” Jamie pointed out, cutting Henry a narrow look. It wasn’t unlike him to latch onto things people didn’t want to talk about, whether it was a lack of social grace or general unawareness for the discomfort of others was still up in the air.

All things considered, he was still suspicious of the guy with all his associations with things that tormented Jamie’s mind. The elite, the rowing club, Alistair. It was just that he had no more leads, only his skepticism until he caught Henry doing something stranger than mincing the English language.

Jamie looked at the pack in his hand, then back at Henry as if in debate. He’d bought the cigarettes with Henry’s money. It didn’t mean he couldn’t charge him back. That was the heart of capitalism.

But after regarding the look on Henry’s sweaty, pale face, Jamie relented and offered him the pack.

“Are jocks even supposed to be smoking?” he asked, turning his hand once Henry took a cigarette and giving him the lighter in his palm. “You’d think a fish would need its gills to swim.”

┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛

“’My fault, my failure, is not in the passions I have, but in my lack of control of them,’” Griffin quoted, the liquor having yet to drown the part of his brain that kept an assortment of literary references under lock and key. His eyes flickered from Jamie to the cup that had been stolen from him, like a dog whose owner had snatched a treat away.

He clicked his tongue dismissively at the question. “Of course I remember,” he answered. “We killed two women and we didn’t even have to do anything. Now that’s what I call efficiency.” He reached over, trying to grab the whiskey smash back from Jamie’s grip, but his dexterity was terrible even when he was sober and Jamie was very tall. Like a scarecrow. Looming over Griffin’s 5′8 form.

“If you would give my drink back, I could continue trying to erase that particular memory,” he said, though he stopped trying to steal it back. He stumbled backward instead, resting against the bar’s brick facade. “You’re telling me you came to this thing completely okay with going it sober? Don’t you think this is fucked up?”

--

Jamie rolled his eyes. He supposed there could only be so many surprises tucked away into the recesses of a brain crammed full of books.

“We didn’t kill anyone,” he corrected, swatting at Griffin’s grabby little hands. Jamie held the glass high above his head and waited until Griffin gave up on it, which honestly didn’t take as long as he thought it would’ve. Frank’s drunken temper and Johnnie’s belligerence had trained him to take the worst of alcoholics but Griffin didn’t seem to be either of those. If anything, he looked kind of pathetic the longer Jamie watched him flop around. It ticked him off. He didn’t want to see his greatest intellectual rival (friend) looking like a sad sack of shit.

“Yes, because I’m not a feeble mortal like you. Guilt and shame can’t fell me. I thrive on it, like a kid on cotton candy,” Jamie told him as he turned his drink out onto the pavement.

“The only fucked up thing about this is how you’ve decided to turn to alcoholism. If you really felt responsible, you’d take some accountability and try and figure this thing out for the people left behind. But nooo, here you are, wallowing in self-pity and telling me bad jokes like I haven’t heard it all before.”

Bending over until they were eye level, Jamie adjusted Griffin’s glasses before patting him on the cheek. 

“Get a grip, Baxley. Inspiring people is not a crime. At least, not a punishable one considering the Pope is still a free bird after what all those Catholic preachers did to those kids.”

Henry was a little surprised at the look Jamie gave him. He was used to Jamie busting his balls during their study sessions, staring at him like he was the stupidest person to walk the earth. But he followed Jamie outside anyway. He had been heading this way first after all.

They stood a little way apart, firmly avoiding each other’s gaze. But it was hard for Henry to ignore the man stood next to him, especially when he wouldn’t stop fidgeting. He glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, half-watching as he turned out his pockets.

The cool night air let them know that fall was on its way, and it was a welcome reprieve from the stifling heat inside the crowded bar. Henry wiped at his forehead, which was damp with sweat. He didn’t feel particularly well. But he didn’t know if that was just the stress of the whole thing getting on top of him or if he was actually coming down with something.

A clattering sound caught his attention and he looked to his right to find, much to his shock, a knife lying on the ground. It was clearly Jamie’s, a fact confirmed when the man hastily bent down to pick it up and stuff it in his pocket. He stared, wide eyed, at Jamie waiting for him to acknowledge the fact that he carried a knife around on his person, presumably at all times. What kind of person carried a knife? Was he expecting to need to use it? Or was he planning on it? The thought made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Not that Henry thought he would be the intended target of anything like that. Or maybe he would, maybe dropping the knife had been some sort of veiled threat.

He was so caught up in his thoughts, he didn’t realise that Jamie was actually talking to him at first. When he realised he was merely chastising him about studying, he relaxed, a little.

     “I-…,” Henry shook his head, trying to compose himself. It was no surprise to either of them that he wasn’t at home studying on a Saturday night, “I’ve had a look at them.”

A look was one way to put it. He’d settled down to attempt the first problem, quickly found it was going to be a lot more difficult than he thought, and promptly launched the notebook at the wall. It was probably still sat on his bedroom floor. 

     “Besides, we kind of had to show our faces tonight, didn’t we?” he said, raising an eyebrow at Jamie, sure he also understood the need to be here, “Everyone’s here.”

--

Jamie shoved his hands deep into his pockets, determined to not only bury the knife but the imploring look Henry was giving him too. Some guys had fancy cars, Jamie had a knife. It wasn’t like the blade had ever licked anyone else’s blood but he wasn’t going to say that aloud. Not when the almighty Henry Kirkpatrick looked like he’d just swallowed a bee.

“As much as it may work for everything else, math isn’t going to solve itself under your smoldering gaze so you better do more than look at them when you get back,” he told him. “You’re not flunking this semester. Not on my watch.”

Reminder of the very real consequences of being students was as good as a cold glass of water. His nerves settled around monotony like kids around a campfire, all eager to hear about what cool story was about to be told next. For Jamie, it meant setting down the paranoia and conspiracies, the suspicion and the fear. It was polynominals and molecular biochemistry. It was the certainty of graduation whether everyone around him died or not.

“Did we?” He quirked a brow at Henry. It made sense to show up with the rest of the Villagers, only Jamie thought he could’ve lived with the guilt if he had to. Death was not something that disturbed him enough to sit at a bar for. 

Jamie took out a crumpled box of cigarettes from his pocket and extracted one with his teeth. Smoking had been a familial bad habit that he’d escaped for years until college where he discovered why his whole family was addicted. He took out his lighter next, fanning his fingers to show Henry that it was not a knife.

“Yeah. Everyone, which means our perp is probably here too. I mean, look at this place. It’s bustling and overflowing with liquor. If I were some basic, unimaginative murderer, I would be staking the perimeter until the lights went out. Unreliable witnesses, distracted victims. Easy pickings if you ask me.”

Jamie flapped a hand at the building, gesticulating his point with a dramatic flourish before he brought the lighter to his cigarette. He paused after the cherry was lit, stealing a glance at Henry who he’d only then noticed looked like he’d caught typhoid.

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If questioned, Griffin would never say he’d planned to get trashed at the memorial. He’d only wanted a few drinks to make the evening easier to swallow. He was, after all, a tightly wound ball of anxiety, even on his best days. There was nothing wrong with a little liquid medicine to deal with that.

The first drink had not been enough. Nor had the second. Susana and Meredith stared at him from the walls, their eyes painted blue and full of accusation. The photographers and artists couldn’t know about what The Secret Villagers had done (what had they done?), but the images felt haunted all the same. Two dead women were lurking around every corner, following Griffin wherever he wandered, and the only thing he could think to do was down more liquor until his vision had blurred and the ghosts blended back into the scenery.

Whether or not Griffin made a habit of over-drinking every time a cup was put in his hand was a moot point. There were worse things to focus on.

“Oh, uh…” He had to blink a few times before recognizing Jamie, forgetting they’d bumped into each other five seconds after it had happened. “I’m not following you,” he slurred, even as he abruptly began to do so. 

He took a swig from the whiskey smash that was in his hand - a glass the size of a pitcher and more whiskey than smash. Then he suddenly laughed, bumping again into Jamie’s back - either an accident or on purpose, it was impossible for anyone to tell. “I’m drinking Jameson,” he explained. “Jamie son… I’ve got your soul in a cup. I think that means you owe me three wishes.”

--

Jamie had been quick to pull away and retreat before offering much else to the person he’d bumped into. The familiarity of Griffin’s voice wasn’t enough to puncture through the thick veil of his paranoia until he found himself punted out of it by a weight on his back. He felt wetness spill onto him, seeping through his sweater as the trickle wiggled down his spine. 

He spun around fiercely, shoving Griffin back and keeping his arm up between them. A futile defense mechanism if his medical history had anything to say about it, but one nonetheless. 

“Are you drunk?” Jamie hissed, sounding more appalled than curious. He looked Griffin up and down as if he’d only met him just then. As far as he understood it, he was. 

Growing up surrounded by alcoholics taught him a host of things about people. Like how terribly they all acted with no inhabitations. It was all fun and games until someone tripped a hidden wire buried beneath their psyche and unleashed the wrath of the manticore. Sometimes, they didn’t even need the tripping.

Griffin didn’t look like the type to be burying hidden rage or feelings of inadequacy, but Jamie could stand corrected. Griffin, after all, had a way of proving him wrong all the time.

“It’s one thing to be into Kerouac but method acting? Really?” Jamie made a rotten face at Griffin’s newfound sense of humor before snatching the cup from his hands. “Give that here. All I owe you is a good knock to the head. Do you even remember why we’re here?”

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

Stella hadn’t even known Jamie all that long and still she knew that it would be pointless to continue a back and forth regarding Professor Schafer. Especially when it had already reached non-verbal argument territory. She knew she was right, and that she should be proud to have such a strong moral compass, and at least for the moment that was enough.

But also… it wasn’t. In the back of her mind the girl was concerned about who Jamie was willing to throw under the bus to make his life go more smoothly. They were friends, right? He wouldn’t… do that to her, right?

Her brain said no. The unconscious fiddling with the edge of her skirt and her momentarily downcast eyes said maybe you should get to know him better to be extra sure.

“How do I leave you out of it if it’s about something that’s yours?” she questioned, eyes narrowing as she pretended to think it through even though she was still more focused on her own thoughts. She was quickly brought entirely back to reality, however, when she processed the rest of what Jamie had said.

“Wait. More people? Who’s asking in the first place?”

The surprise of the statement kept Stella from being at all able to further the conversation she’d once again turned non-verbal (how many dead ends would they reach that day?), all thoughts of further causing Jamie mental anguish with talks of Shrek far from her mind.

Who even cared if they hung out? Was it… that weird? There were all sorts of stereotypes present in the Secret Village with undoubtedly more odd combinations. Was she, in her new butterfly form… not supposed to hang out with Jamie?? Or was Jamie not supposed to be seen with her???

“I don’t think all celebrity is manufactured. Backstreet Boys, yes. And… Spice Girls too, I’m sure. Plus *NSYNC. And Britney and Christina came out of the Disney machine. But…” she allowed herself to drift off.

She was only further proving his point, and she didn’t particularly feel like fully losing an argument that day. Instead she pretended to notice just then how he had been preparing to leave. She had clocked it the moment he’d picked up his keys, but she’d learned by that point (after enough heartbreak from her now-distant brother’s non-invitations) not to assume that she would be invited to go anywhere. She waited for further instruction, carefully sliding off of Jamie’s bed only once he’d offered what she thought might be an invitation. Unless… he was actually just asking her to leave so that he could go eat.

“Then you do have a type,” she acknowledged, moving past him and out into the hall. “Please don’t leave me waiting in suspense. If I buy you lunch will you tell me?’

--

Jamie shut the door behind her and locked it before jostling the knob as if he didn’t trust it the first time without aggressive verification. “What’s with the 20 questions?”

It wasn’t as if Jamie hated answering questions. He loved it, actually. It was just that the questions that always came out of Stella’s mouth weren’t the kind that made him feel smart and worldly. They were normal things that pried open the lid to normalcy, things he could probably live the rest of his life without attempting ever again. 

He rolled his eyes as they made their way towards the dining hall. By they, it was mostly him trying to escape the big doe eyes and wagging tail that was Stella Santos.

“I figured everyone knew my type, but sure. I’ll bite,” he told her baldly as they walked. “I like my girls cold, quiet and unmoving. Ideally unbloated by water and before the myosin molecules adhere to the actin filaments in her muscles, but I suppose I’m not opposed to working out her kinks. Must be generous and dedicated to the advancement of science and discovery.”

He spoke as if he were in deep deliberation over an ideal partner and not just a cadaver. In retrospect, his dark humor looked terrible on the backdrop of serial murders.

Jamie cut Stella a sideways look as they turned into the cafeteria. “What? You asked,” he said before rolling his eyes again. “I don’t have a type. I’ve got better things to worry about than who I’m going to be doing in ten years. It’s the what I’m going to be doing that concerns me. I’ll take the lasagna and that whole basket of bread, by the way.”

—

Henry wouldn’t have been at Home Grown that night if he thought he could avoid it. After getting much drunker than he meant to last time he had visited the bar, he was beginning to doubt his alcohol tolerance, and he didn’t think drinking too much was the best way to deal with things. He’d rather throw himself into training and his abysmal attempts at studying. But he knew far too many people who were planning on attending tonight and it would have looked suspicious if he didn’t. The problem with being recognisable on campus was that your absences did not go unnoticed. 

Being there made it hard to continue his usual tactic of ignoring the strange and worrying things that were going on. Especially since Stella had received that email from the librarian. He wanted to believe his own talk about coincidences and not jumping to conclusions, but it was getting harder to listen to his own advice. So being surrounded by pictures of the two victims and reminded of his uncomfortably close connection to their deaths was not helping his already elevated levels of anxiety.

The room was hot and crowded and the music was loud and the glass of water in his hand wasn’t really cutting it. Henry tried to push his way through the crowd towards the door, in half a mind to just head home. His efforts were sidetracked when someone backed into him. Not just someone, possibly one of the last people Henry wanted to see, ranked just above the killer that was one the loose.

     “I was going outside too,” he said flatly, realising they were both heading in the same direction. His new tutor wasn’t really someone he wanted to have a conversation with, or be seen having a conversation with. Their relationship had started tense at best but their study sessions had quickly catapulted their dynamic into downright animosity.

     “Don’t worry. I wasn’t planning on keeping you company.”

--

Jamie only spared Henry a wide-eyed look before he darted out the door as if he were afraid his face would peel off and reveal a wolf too. 

Tutoring with Henry had been the pain he anticipated but not in an entirely unpleasant way. The dude was marginally smarter than a toothbrush in the sense that he was capable of moving on his own, but the material did not stick the way Jamie wanted it to. Teaching Henry instead became something of a game on its own. A jigsaw puzzle laced with all his verbal thorns. It almost excited him to have to think about new ways to present an idea to a person. That wasn’t the reason for his animosity. 

It was the lingering suspicion that put him on edge. It was the sight of Henry laughing it up with the rowing team, hovering around Alistair Branson with any modicum of familiarity. It was the way he sometimes smelled like the sickly sweet liquor that haunted him beneath whatever cologne he thought to cover it up with. It was the way he fought against investigation in the group chat, as if he were afraid they’d find something in the basement of the library.

Jamie stole nervous glances at Henry once they were outside, his hands shaking as they dug through every pocket he had on his person for cigarettes, a lighter, anything. His paranoia had mounted into a monster and it was eating the part of his brain that told him that he was looking like a freak to anyone who chanced a glance at him.

Then, a noisy clatter against the concrete stopped him cold. Jamie looked down to find his pocket knife on the ground, its blade spinning like a bottle at a teen house party until it stopped on Henry. He swooped to pick it up, in hope that no one else saw it.

“You’re supposed to be studying,” Jamie pointed out, pre-emptively getting the jump on conversation. “I find it highly unlikely that you’ve already worked out all the functions I gave you.”

𓆩 ♡ 𓆪  ⊹ ˚ ˖ ⋆ ｡ ⋆   ˖   ˚   ⊹    𓆩 ♡ 𓆪   

There was always some kind of jealousy and longing when she watched the Dropouts on stage. As if she were torturing herself, Jude kept coming back to Home Grown. Like a pattern repeating where death followed the music, Meredith was the second Wolf victim. Though she wanted to ignore Maggie all night, she couldn’t. Not just because of the volume, but it definitely helped. How could she still perform after having everything ripped from her? It was stupid and selfish to be comparing grief and the way they coped, but she couldn’t let the night go peacefully without beating herself up. The music, her passion, was all gone and it was something she’d done. They got up. Why couldn’t she?

Deciding this train of thought was simply too much for the level of sobriety she still had, Jude made her way to the bar. Like some guardian angel telling her to not get trashed and draw attention at the memorial for Wolf victims (aka the consequences of not watching where she was going), she bumped into someone else. Jamie’s voice quickly cutting through the silence was reassurance she wasn’t going to struggle through another conversation with a stranger. ❝            No one could hold an 18th centenary candelabra to you, Jack Skellington. ❞

Her eyes scanned the room for the man Jamie had been talking about, only to be met with a sea of average. Had she been lost in her own head and missed something that happened before? Did she only catch half his sentence? Before she could voice any of these questions, Jamie was already excusing himself.

❝ Hey, no. It’s okay. I’ll come with you. ❞ Deep down, Jude knew that was probably not what he wanted and the only thing stopping him from straight-up telling her not to come was either politeness for a borderline friend or just how frazzled he seemed. ❝ You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to. Pretend I’m not there. I just don’t think being alone right now is a good idea. ❞

Realistically, if Jamie needed a protector, it wouldn’t be Jude. Even she could admit that while she was putting her hand up for the position. But they talked. ❝ Plus, I could use the fresh air. I don’t think we’ll be missed too much if we duck away for a few seconds. ❞

--

Jamie was already making his way through the crowd by the time Jude was enthusiastically volunteering, bursting out of the front doors with more fanfare than he’d come with. The cool night air was relieving for only a second before that too became a reminder, his damp, cooling sweat sending chills down his spine. He swiped at the back of his neck like he was trying to itch at a pest, the skin there growing angry and red at his persistence.

He shot a distrustful look back into the bar as the door popped open a second a few seconds after him, the warm glow of celebration looking more like hellish flames than anything.

“Unless I’ve suddenly become blonde, I don’t think I’m at any risk of being stolen off the streets,” he said belatedly, when he realized he hadn’t said a word to his dutiful companion. Jude was hard to ignore on most days, but he was grateful for her presence that night. He needed one thing that wasn’t going to set off every alarm in his system and luckily, he’d yet to spend enough time with his sister to warrant a trip wire for small girls.

Jamie stuffed his hands into his pockets before deciding that felt too open and folded his arms tightly across his chest as he paced along a shadow at the corner of the building.

“I still stand by the notion that this is a horrible idea. All those people are going to have to walk home eventually,” he pointed out, sounding a little urgent. Paranoid. “If that doesn’t spell trouble, I don’t know what does.”

“I don’t know… probably Home Grown’s owner, considering they’ve worked with The Dropouts for so long. It isn’t a terrible idea… The place is bound to be swarmed with cops, so what’s the worst that could happen? This guy stalks women who walk alone at night, he doesn’t nip them away from crowds. As far as I know,” Griffin reasoned. 

At least, that was how the legend went. The Wolf crept into town in the dead of night, when none of the farmers were awake to catch him. If this guy really was a super fan, there was no way he’d make a move with so many people in attendance. 

The very fact that Griffin was applying this type of logic to the situation made a shiver course through him. It was too close to home. He opened a book as a means to distract himself.