Thank you to those who reviewed my first fic! I'm clearly new to the site but your opinions mean a lot.
I've forgotten why I've named this "Not Guilty" but anyway, I own nothing.
"Max, there are no spirits in here so stop moving the glass for your own personal gain!" Prudence cried in good nature.
Huddled around the "whatever" room table, Jude, Max, Prudence, Sadie and JoJo focused inwardly at the temporary Ouija board Prudence had made out of a length of cardboard. The letters and numbers offered towards the spirits passing through were written in fine Sharpie with the girl's dainty scrawl. A shot glass had become their single moving piece to be guided through the hands of the living. Max was taking this to his advantage before they'd even started.
"Maybe they're shy!" Max replied, lifting one hand off the upside down shot glass to vaguely wave his arm. "I want to confront the ghoul who keeps placing my cigarettes in the underwear drawer when I specifically-"
"Em… I thought that's where you kept 'em?"
"Jude!" Max wailed, rounding on his best friend, more puzzled than angry. "Why the underwear drawer, though?"
Unfortunately, no one was coming to his rescue with a sweeping gesture of interference. They all silently blinked at him, awaiting an answer.
"I… just…"
"Prudence, honey, why don't you start?" Sadie would give Jude the benefit of the doubt that he kept a good reason for stuffing Max's cigarettes with the unmentionables. She'd rather move on before Lucy came home than listen to a flustered Jude stutter through his thick accent.
Prudence slid the glass to the welcoming area of the board, inviting the spirits to join their comfy circle.
"Is there anyone with us tonight who would like to speak up?"
Max bent over the makeshift board, muttering a question about the off chance Sadie might like to sleep with him.
"I don't think so," JoJo remarked calmly, throwing a no-bullshit glance towards the blond. Max merely cleared his throat and straightened up in his chair.
"They don't read minds, Max." Prudence added with an eye roll though Max perked up when Sadie winked suggestively - albeit, jokingly - at him.
"Is Daniel with us this evening?" The group, the whole room in fact, grew quiet like it knew to breathe more carefully. They were treading over uncertain ground.
Prudence's fingers pressed the top of the overturned glass, wavering for any indignation or impression to carry out her movements on the board.
"Prob'ly with Lucy." Jude spoke in respectful quiet, mirroring the thoughts of his neighbors at the table.
Prudence lightly hushed the Brit, to keep the airwaves clear for their unrest guests. Sitting in slowing-time silence for another thirty seconds, a wake in Prudence's fingers urged her to spell out YES across the Ouija.
Max, the known skeptic, believed Prudence's hand was forcing the glass just as he had done but his mouth remained firmly closed, a smirk resting on his lips while watching the others.
Their leader lingered hesitantly upon asking another question but continued after Sadie nodded her approval.
"Will you be with us for very long, Daniel?" In Prudence's experience, the spirits rarely stayed for a good discussion but two or three questions sufficed.
The pause between question and answer was longer this time. Max had it in mind that Prudence wanted to do him in when she gave him a dirty look the same time his impatiently jittering leg shook the table.
NO
Jude's audible exhale could've been described as one of relief and he removed his abused thumbnail away from his teeth to lay his hand in his lap.
Now there was the hard decision of choosing the right questions and suddenly Prudence didn't feel the need to be responsible anymore.
JoJo recognized the contemplative gaze of their young tenant and opted to help her in the form of his own curious inquiry.
"Ask him if he had the opportunity to tell those he loved what he wanted to say."
Prudence deemed the question fair and with her fingers holding the glass firmly still over the "O" of their last question, asked: "Were you satisfied with the last words you gave to your loved ones?"
An unsettling NO followed quite shortly than the other responses had. Jude's eyes, darkened in the dim atmosphere they had lit, darted around their close circle in an attempt to read the expressions of his friends. Max showed an obnoxious look of pure amusement. He thought this a childish folly, perhaps.
"Whom does Lucy love?" Sadie leaned towards the woman with glass in hand, whispering the question. Underneath a few fallen strands, Sadie's eyes returned Jude's wide wonder while the Brit grew slightly pale.
Max contained a snort - even JoJo had his skepticism of the answer in the form of Jude's cautiously spelled out name. They were undoubtedly expecting Daniel's name to rise to occasion. But Jude breathed noticeably easier and Sadie briefly rubbed the man's back.
"You wanted to know, sugar."
With the important questions out of the way, Max decided he wanted to prove his theory correct.
"And whom does Jude love in return?" He raised his eyebrows, eyes openly eager. The rest of the group visibly groaned, thinking it a waste of a question. But Prudence figured Daniel would disappear before answering and humored Max by waiting on a response.
Dead silence once following an M and an A was an X. MAX. As in, the truth Max wanted to know but not in this particular setting.
"Pru!" Max choked out accusingly. The girl's blank face told him she hadn't a clue.
"I thought you said they couldn't read minds!" This following remark brought the group to a revelation. Max was not immediately denying the answer on the board with a hilarious scheme about his and Jude's sordid love affair. Instead, he was defending himself all too peculiarly while a lad from Liverpool turned the deepest shade of red.
Sadie simply said, "Don't need to read minds to know that."
An unusually shy set of blue eyes met a reliant pair of brown as two pale hands intertwined slender fingers under the table belonging to either of the Brit and the blond.