The day was cold, irritatingly so. Jacqui shivered in her thin coat, trying to warm up, but the snow and ice around her made that an impossibility. She could have, in theory, gone into the back alley where two homeless guys had lit a fire in a garbage can-homeless. She had to stop using that as a dirty word, considering that's what she was. The only thing she was, because after that night two years ago, she wasn't anyone's daughter anymore.
"Fuck it." she grumbled, moving into the road, thumb outstretched. A plethora of cars drove past her, until one pulled to a stop.
The driver was some muscle-bound guy with shades, the sprinkles of gray in his hair putting him somewhere in his forties or fifties. One of the very people it'd been engrained in her brain to avoid, but there weren't any red flags yet.
"Where you headed?" he asked, rolling down the window of his shiny Lexus.
"Anywhere warm."
"Get in."
As it turned out, the guy's name was Johnny. "Well, John Carlton, but no one calls me that." He'd been an actor.
"Ever seen Ninja Mime?"
"No."
"Good. We can start off fresh, then. What's your name?"
"Jacqui."
"That sounds familiar. Anyway, Jacqui, it's not safe for you to be wandering around, especially in this cold."
"With all due respect, I don't really have much of a choice. No home, you know?"
"I personally don't, no. What's your story?"
It was still painful to think about, so Johnny got the abridged version. "I was living with some family friends in the suburbs. There was a fire. I got out. They didn't. Foster care sounded like a terrible option, so I just drifted around."
With the car stopped at a red light, Johnny regarded her quizzically. "How old are you?"
"Seventeen."
"When was the last time you ate?"
"Two days ago."
He sighed, as though her answer caused him physical pain."See, this is my problem with big cities. There are always homeless kids. Always. It's a real problem. Tell me something, do you like Italian food?"
Half an hour later, she was wolfing down pasta as though her life depended on it in some run-down restaurant with Johnny seated across from her.
"Kid, you need to breathe. I didn't pick you up to watch you choke to death on a meatball." She normally would have bit back a rebuttal, but her primary focus as of now was to completely empty the contents of her plate into her stomach. When she was finished, she asked. "Then why did you pick me up?"
"I felt bad. You and my daughter are about the same age, and it'd kill me to see her on the street."
"So you don't have any plans to bring me back?"
"Not unless you want to. I understand if you're suspicious of me, but I've also got a spare room at my house."
There, Jacqui was stuck. Johnny had been nothing but nice to her, and she really didn't get a "I'm going to murder you" or an "I'm going to harvest your organs" vibe from him, but weren't serial killers known for being friendly and socially adept? She really didn't want to end up on a table cut down the middle, but the idea of a warm, soft bed was calling her name.
"I've got a bat in my truck I can give to you if you want. Make you feel safer."
"I'll take you up on that."And so a cheap aluminum bat was pressed into her hands ans she sat in the back seat of Johnny's car, trying to remember landmarks in case she ever needed to head back "home".
Which she soon decided she wasn't going to do, not after seeing Johnny's house (which was more like a mansion. She honestly expected a servant to take their coats when they stepped inside.)
"Welcome to La Casa de Cage." Johnny said.
"I don't think that's the right pronunciation."
"Probably not." Johnny agreed. "But mi casa es tu casa."
She takes a bubble bath. A goddamn bubble bath. She wants to sit in there forever, forgetting that she's in someone's home and that it's cold outside, but a knock at the door makes her jump.
"You in there?" A female voice. "I'm Cassie. Dad just finished telling me about you. It looks like you'll be staying with us for a while, well, as long as you want anyway. I'm going to come in for a sec- I'm covering my eyes, don't worry. I'm leaving the clothes near the towels. They're mine, but dad said they should fit you. Okay, I'm leaving now. Yell if you need anything."
Jacqui didn't need anything at that moment, but after changing into the spare clothes laid out for her, she needed a map to navigate the house. She managed to find her way into the living room, where there was a blonde girl on the couch, eyes on the TV- Cassie. Jacqui had no idea how to even start a conversation, but the sound of her footsteps had already caught Cassie's attention, and she got up to greet her.
Jacqui had a knack for telling when she was in trouble. It was why she was alive and no one else on the farm was. And she knew she was in a lot of trouble the second she actually saw Cassie, because Cassie happened to be one of the most beautiful people she'd ever seen, ever. She almost hurt to look at, she was so pretty.
And then there was Jacqui, who'd just had her first bath in months, who was in clothes too big for her and was a mess, basically. She'd never felt more like an outcast in her whole life than at that moment, in some rich dude's house with his insanely attractive daughter in front of her.
"I'm going to assume you're Jacqui, and not some random person who somehow got in here." Cassie said.
"I'm definitely Jacqui."
"Good. I'm watching Dragon Fist. Care to join me?"
"Dragon Fist?"
"Oh, you haven't seen it? This is going to be great. Come on."
As it turned out, Dragon Fist was an excruciatingly long movie about a martial artist. It was such a long movie that Jacqui fell asleep in the middle of it.
She woke up in the most comfortable bed ever. It seemed as though getting up took an effort that she did not have in her, and her bed feeling like a cloud was not helping matters at all. The sunlight filtering through the window informed her that it was morning, as did the smell of bacon.
"Well, look who it is, Cass. Hey, Jacqui. How do you like your eggs?"Johnny asked, as Jacqui found her way into the kitchen.
"I-what?"
"Scrambled it is."
Jacqui slid into a chair at the table, trying not to look directly at Cassie. "Morning."
"Morning, sunshine." Cassie smirked.
Oh, this was going to be way more difficult then she thought.
…
It takes the Cage family a month to trust her fully. She doesn't blame them- picking a kid off the streets could get real dangerous. Still, it's a month until everything feels natural, where she knows where things are and doesn't take 3 hour baths.
It's also a month until she and Cassie are left alone together for longer than a couple of hours. Johnny goes on some tour of Europe but Cassie had stayed, something Jacqui couldn't help but feeling she had something to do with. She turns out to be sort of right.
A month, in retrospective, isn't a long time. Cassie knew the basics about her, the same condensed story she'd told Johnny, which in Cassie's mind wasn't enough. Maybe she was entitled to some information, since Jacqui was living in her house, but the way she chose to get it led to some complications.
Truth or Dare. Or, more specifically, Truth or Truth, with the added clause that if you didn't answer a question, you had to remove an item of clothing. "Friendly competition." Cassie had said.
"So." Cassie started, on one side of the couch and Jacqui on the other."I'll go first. Why were you staying with family friends when that fire hit?"
Jacqui weighed the pros and cons of answering, before removing a shoe.
"Well played."
"I know. Why isn't your mom around?"
"She and dad split up a couple of years ago. Did not end well." was Cassie's response. "Why'd you agree to come here?"
"It was cold."
"You're going to have to say more than a sentence at one point, you know."
Jacqui shrugged. "So you're closer to your dad?"
"Absolutely. I don't hate my mom, but she was just never around." A pause. Then "What happened the night you left the farm?"
Jacqui made eye contact with Cassie, before removing her other shoe.
"This is going to take a while."
An hour later, Cassie had only some of her questions answered, and Jacqui had lost her socks and her hoodie. Cassie had wolf-whistled when she took it off, despite knowing she was wearing a shirt under it, which made Jacqui blush.
"Why are you so forward?" Jacqui asked.
"What, like flirty?" Jacqui nodded. "I don't- I mean, you're really pretty and it just kind of happens." Jacqui was unsure of how to respond.
"Alright. My turn. Do you mind if we change this to truth or dare?"
"I suppose not."
"I choose truth, by the way."
"What's the point of truth or dare if you pick truth?"
"To learn something about the other person. Now, truth or dare-"
"That doesn't count!"
"You asked me a question and I answered it."
"Whatever."
"Truth or dare?"
"Dare, because I'm not a punk." Jacqui immediately regretted those words as an expression of absolute smugness made it's way across Cassie's face.
"Kiss me."
"What?"
"You heard me." Cassie said, pausing for emphasis on every word as she leaned forward. "Kiss me. Put your lips on mine."
A pause.
"I thought you weren't a punk." Cassie taunted.
Jacqui glanced at Cassie, wanting more than anything in the world to wipe the smirk off of her face, and also wanting to take the dare and actually kiss her, but the last thing she wanted was for things to be awkward between her and the daughter of the man who had taken her in.
She sighed, knowing she was fucked either way.
"Fuck- I'm sorry, Jacqui. That wasn't fair of me to put you in that scenario. I like to win, and I shouldn't have tried to make you do something you didn't want to. Just forget it."
"I kind of wanted to." Jacqui admitted.
"Don't feel like you have to do this." Cassie said, but Jacqui's mind was going cloudy because Cassie was getting closer and closer to her until their lips (finally) touched.
The effect was instantaneous. Jacqui barely had time to register that they were kissing before Cassie pulled her closer, fingers knotting in her hair and breathy pants coming from the both of them.
"Hey, the couch isn't exactly the best place for this." Cassie whispered when they separated for air.
"Got a better suggestion?"
"My room."
….
"You seem stressed." Cassie said, arms wrapped around her, later.
"More worried than anything."
"Why?"
"I'm not exactly going to earn brownie points with your dad for banging his daughter."
"What, you think he's going to kick you out or something? He's not going to do that. I'll fight him if he tries." At this, Jacqui had to hold back a laugh.
"You're laughing, but I'll punch him in the face. You watch me." Cassie murmured as she snuggled closer to Jacqui. "You're stuck with me now."
"Alright, Cage. I get it. You'll fight your dad in some weird show of dominance if he wants to get rid of me."
"Hell yeah, I will. Now do me a favor and stop worrying. Everything's going to be fine."