otherbitches | IC Inbox [ RUBI ]

[ It's just a little burst of blood seeping out of her. There must have been so much more in Quentin's apartment. He thinks of the tub for a moment, how it gleamed so clean, when in the moment it must have been stained with sticky, cloying red. He doesn't want any more to seep out, and he keeps the pressure. ]

I'm not going anywhere, [ he mumbles softly into her hair when she presses close. He feels, suddenly, that she doesn't believe him. Maybe someone else could convince her, who doesn't have his baggage, his temper. He wonders if this is the sort of thing that means he'll lose her. Surely there are easier people to love here than him. He thinks even the serial killer asks for less.

His hand runs up and down her back, soft between her shoulder blades, then warm when his palm settles on her lower back. His other hand is still wrapped tight around her hand, her cut, and he tugs her toward the bed, to sit, where he can join her.

She told him to come home so they could talk. ]

So. You were friends with Raven.

More than friends, sometimes. Best friends, more often than not.

[She’s gone easily. Sat down, unwilling to lose either point of contact with him. Selfishly so. ]

She’s so smart. Like scary smart - and beautiful. [Fond; longing. ] She’s quick, too - in an argument. Sharp. We used to hang out, do normal stuff neither of us got to do before.

[She looks down at their hands, intertwined. Locked together, for better or worse. ] We didn’t talk about her leg all that much. I just knew someone had done it to her, and sometimes I’d rub the calf, and I used to wonder why she never asked the Eudio reps to fix it, you know? She’s stubborn. Worse than Murphy.

[Ha. ] And - there was Bellamy. He was from the Ark too. Sometimes there’d be a group of people all from the same place, like that.

[ He didn't get a sketch like this from Murphy. His words surrounding Raven were more analytical, more focused on the pain he'd delivered to her, to their friends, to the people he allied with. He listens and pictures Raven like a full person, like— Jem. A girl, who liked pretending like her life wasn't fucked. Who was stubborn, like Murphy or Jem or Billy himself. ]

Having trouble believing anyone's more stubborn than Murphy.

[ Untrue. See: the hypothetical Raven, Jem, and Billy. Anyway. His thumb rubs over her wrist. ]

Did you know him too? Bellamy? [ Billy's heard about him. Hears what Murphy doesn't say when he talks about him. It's a little familiar. ]

Oh, yeah. He’s a real weenie.

[Still terribly fond, maybe a little sad. It’s strange to mourn a life you were never supposed to have, to miss something this much when it was never supposed to be anything other than a vague dream.

If she tries hard enough, she can picture Bellamy: the floppy hair, the kind eyes - ] He’s a sarcastic prick, too. But he’s lovely.

Sorry. That you don't have them anymore. [ It's a weird emotion in his gut, not so alien from jealousy, that creature he's determined to strangle when he's in his right mind. It bubbles up from the memory of Murphy talking about Bellamy with a look in his eye. It sinks in from knowing that Jem knew him too, that Jem had a whole life that was kinder than this one, the one with Billy. ]

So. You gonna shoot Murphy? Leg for a leg?

He'd probably let you.

I'm getting used to just missing them. [It. A whole other life. She wishes she'd been a better friend, sometimes. Wishes she'd said I love you a lot more than she did. Maybe it's why she says it so much here, now, just in case.

She breathes out through her nose; harsh, a little - annoyed. ] No. I might knock his lights out, but the rest is - Raven's. Just hers.

[Any revenge, she means. ]

[ He doesn't get it one hundred percent, but he gets it. They'll work it out themselves. Or they won't. If they don't— he doesn't have grace when it comes to shit like this.

He carefully asks: ] How'd it end? After you two talked.

Got a date for when you're going to try knocking him out?

[ It's meant to be humorous. It might be a bit dry. His hand is still tight on her wound, and he lets go to see if it's still seeping. When it's not, he pulls out a bandage he'd grabbed, wraps it tightly in fresh wrapping. ]

It didn't end good. [It's a little flat. Hollow. She's watching him wrap her hand, the care of it, the time he takes with it, like she's precious, like she's cared for. She sighs heavy, always tired, always weary. ]

I said I wasn't going to choose between them. Because I'm not. [She's stubbornly holding onto this, because she won't. She'd sooner cut them all off and leave for the jungle on her own. ] Then he said some shit about how I'm not choosing, but you have to choose between me and Petre which - is ridiculous, first of all.

[An absolutely insane and stupid comparison to her, personally. ] It wasn't even a fight, it was just stupid. He's stupid. [Mature, she knows. ] I asked if - the next thing was him making you choose between me and him. He didn't answer, he just circled back, and it's so fucking stupid.

[ She is precious. She is cared for. He'd rather they were somewhere far from here, a place where she wasn't hurting, where he wasn't hurting too. Funny to think that for a spell, that place felt like Hawkins. If they stepped back through the void, would they go back? For a wild moment he thinks about standing up, tugging her arm, taking her with him.

He's frowning while listening. There's no picking between Murphy and John, because he doesn't know John, not like Jem does. Has never spent a night with him or shared a drink alone, never been coaxed into revealing himself, never put his defenses down, never seen the man behind the curtain. He was invited to their home once, and he stabbed their cat. He trusts he would protect Jem. He can't guess at him otherwise. His connection to John is Jem, and he won't choose between Murphy and Jem, so he's frowning, more so when Petre comes up. That's— different he guesses. ]

I did pick you over Petre. I'm not gonna fuck around with the guy who broke your heart.

[ The rest of it is hard for him to put to words. Never a good sign. ] There's no picking between you and Murphy because— this isn't where you two end.

I wouldn’t have asked you to. I just didn’t want to see you - laughing at his stupid jokes. [Not the point, really, and it’s terribly petulant. She’s been good, she thinks, about keeping all her jealousy and insecurities at bay. She’s swallowed them down and put them in a box called hypocritical slut, because a girl with five boyfriends doesn’t really have much of a say about anything. It would be, she thinks, the worst thing in the whole entire world if Petre were to be the reason she opened the box.

Less so if it were Murphy. It stings just a little to hear that there’s no choosing. But that goes in the box too, where it belongs, because deep down she does like Murphy. She cares deeply about Murphy. She misses him.

Her face is so sour. An ugly pinch of her brows, the terrible frown of her mouth, the never-ending tiredness that she can’t seem to stop from permeating off of her. Maybe if she slept better, she’d be a better person. A more rational person. Just a person, even. She feels like a walking time-bomb. ]

I don’t know what that means. [Where does she end? Here? Home?

Her head tilts, bends to rest her cheek in his shoulder. She almost says: but you’re mine. He knows that, though. She hopes. She wants. ]

You wouldn't have asked, but it... wouldn't have been okay. It wouldn't have worked. I'm not stupid. He hurt you.

[ Month's ago, it wasn't the sort of thing he would have given a shit about, because before Rubilykskoye, another person's happiness wouldn't have registered to him. Not as something he'd need to concern himself with. Petre's a funny son of a bitch who sucked his dick once. Pretty par the course for making friends in this shithole. Jem's different and Murphy is too. ]

It means this isn't it. It means you're going to be good again.

Don't ask how I know. I just do.

[ They have to. He knows they both want to be. ]

I don't know if that's true.

[Is this pessimistic? Maybe. But, it's because, very stubbornly: ] I'm not going to fold. Not about John. I don't think he will either.

[It's exhausting for her. She can only imagine how exhausting it is for Billy. She can imagine how much it must hurt, actually - knows, even, how much it hurts to be stuck between two people who won't see eye to eye. But she won't budge, she's in too deep, she cares too much. ] I'm - I'm sorry.

[ He doesn't know John well enough to trust him like Jem trusts him, even after his monster frothed up though him and all over John, a confusing pain point. He hasn't really been privy to that aspect of her life here, that important aspect of her life here. But he doesn't really blame John, not in a personal way, and truthfully it's Danny who causes him more actual hurt on a good day, and he dutifully ignores that. So he dutifully puts John out of mind too. Murphy will come through this strange pained rebirth.

He does believe, though, that this isn't the end of Murphy and Jem. He doesn't accept or reject the apology. ]

Do you want me to talk to him?

[She softens at that. The bristling stops, for a moment, and she - she would like that. She would appreciate that. But: ]

Don’t make it weird between you for me.

[ The problem is, he doesn't actually know what to say. Because he gets it, he gets why Murphy would push John and his dear family away, but he knows Jem, who he thinks would forgive anything, who believes it was a mistake, and maybe it was.

His hand glides through her hair. He stubbornly doesn't think about the version where they don't get good. ] I'm a big boy. I'm not going to lose either of you.

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