Sink or Swim | Chapter Six, Sunflowers
A blinding light the sun had died
A new moon took its place
Tidal waves and open graves the fate of the unhuman race
The city's heart no longer beats no pity have I left to lend
A sinner sits reciting Dylan it's now that I welcome the end
When the walls came tumbling down, Def Leppard
The town Sheriff, Elizabeth Forbes, stood atop Wickery Bridge, looking out upon the small town from beneath the slanted peak of her officer's cap. It was an unbearably hot day, and she could hear the autonomous buzz of the radio from her cruiser drone on.
"We're looking at a whopping 86 degrees this morning with an all time high of 92 degrees later today, folks! 'Tsa warm front on the move that doesn't seem to be letting up anytime soon by the looks of things. And now, we have this week's number one, Boom Boom Pow by the Black Eyed Peas for the sixth consecutive week!" It was a voice she recognised, vaguely, because in a small town like this the local weather man was a celebrity and radio presenters also entered the rank of somebody.
She could hear Officer Delaney swearing under his breath, didn't have to turn around to know he was wiping at his neck with a big hefty paw, red in the face and sweating like a pig.
It clicked all of a sudden, not that it really mattered who was reading off a printed sheet back at the local station, but it clicked all the same. Ryan Prescott, they'd been in the same year back at school, though that seemed so far back now that she was on the brink of forty.
It was May 25th, only two days after the accident, and the case was already drawn to a close. Elizabeth Forbes didn't suspect foul play, and she didn't doubt the facts in the case file, but she just couldn't let it go. Though her opinion, or more fittingly, doubts, had went unheard. Richard Lockwood wanted Wickery Bridge back in working order, there was a high demand concerning the general public of their sleepy little town, and he wanted construction work to take place as soon as possible, police investigation be damned. So Liz bowed her head, said Yes sir, Mayor Lockwood said jump and she said how high, mister mayor sir? and walked out of his office with her tail tucked between her legs. It was more than a power play or something to do with titles and authority, this was a founding family matter. And the whole town felt it.
And yet there she stood, her gaze drifting to the water of the lake below. It seemed so daunting then, the picturesque lake- the kind they printed on postcards you bought on the way through town- seemingly holding all the answers as the waves crashed serenely and the water washed up against the rocks.
Elena Gilbert- Caroline's friend, her mind supplied absently. Oh, so now you remember your daughter. You ignored her all too easily this morning, pretended that you didn't notice her puffy eyes.- was found on the banks after an anonymous phone call was made and the paramedics came along. She hadn't woken up as of yet, but Liz wasn't hopeful that she'd remember much anyhow, never mind how she managed to get out of the water.
She'd broken the news personally, watched Jeremy Gilbert's face crumble and Jenna Sommers age before her very eyes. But that's what being a founder entailed, so she did her duty and watched it all happen with some sense of detachment.
Caroline was crying, didn't you notice?
Jamie Gilbert was another matter entirely, and that had been when Jeremy stopped crying.
But your Daughter's still at home, probably tucked away in her room crying those baby blue eyes of hers out.
There was no body.
She had tried to diminish the hope in his eyes, because in that moment, watching the unforgiving waves underneath the bridge, cruel and deathly, she knew for a fact that there was no way she survived. But if she were dead then how the hell did Elena end up on the bank? And where was the body?
Liz didn't have the answers, and she doubted she ever would. But others were always willing to put in their two cents.
"D'ya know what I think?" Officer Delaney spoke up, leaning heavily against the cruiser, red faced in the unrelenting heat. "I think the kid went a'running scared, ayuh." He shifted his weight and the motor creaked in protest, moving along with his heavy figure.
She already knew this, knew exactly what he thought because he hadn't stopped telling her and whoever else would listen exactly what he thought since the night of the accident.
"Pro'ly argued with her folks, her old man ran the car off the bridge in a moment of heat, and when she got that sister of hers out she high tailed it into the woods. Left her folks for dead."
They'd scoured the woods, a desperate measure that came up with zilch. When they found Elena there were no tracks, it didn't look like she'd been dragged ashore and there were no footprints in the waterlogged soil. Absolutely nothing to support this theory at all.
Ralph Delaney had had dealings with Jamie Gilbert in the not so distant past, picked her up for fighting and possession and a shit load of other stuff she should have been charged for. Lock up and throw away the key. You wouldn't find it on record though, no matter how many verbal cautions and warnings she got. She was a Gilbert, a founder, and that meant she could get away with murder. And in his eyes she had gotten away with just that.
Some people around town thought that the accident wasn't such a bad thing, it reminded people that even those rich folks and their fancy founder titles weren't as untouchable as they thought. They got what was coming to them, maybe, or maybe not. It didn't really matter. Ralph Delaney was one of those people.
"I say we check up on that boy of hers, Johnny Marx. That'd be where she's hiding, yessiree."
Liz stared at the water, the peak of her cap shielding troubled eyes from the unrelenting glare of the sun. She remembered Jamie Gilbert, and maybe, just maybe, this wasn't such a bad thing.
They had asked if there was anywhere Jamie would go, a standard procedure sort of deal, he'd seen it on those cop shows and crime dramas that played on the television all the time.
That's what led him to her room. He was missing something, surely, and whatever he was missing was vital to the case, he could feel it in his bones, in his very being. Jeremy was certain that that was it, that the missing piece to the puzzle was here, somewhere, just waiting to be found, begging even.
He'd given them a list of people, they said they'd follow it up, he hadn't heard back yet.
Jeremy didn't find the missing piece, but he did find an eighth of weed in the bedside cabinet, tucked away in the back of the drawer.
With his knees tucked into his chest, an arm draped over them, holding the baggie- just the corner, with a light, delicate touch- and his head firmly planted into the folds of the fabric at the crook of his elbow, smothering, other arm slung over his head, he wept. He'd never seen weed before, never mind held it, but he knew what it was all the same. Knew what it did to you. And in that moment it didn't seem like such a bad idea.
This was the first of many nights that he'd cry in her room, huddled in the corner with the lights turned off and his arms held over himself protectively, but the only time that he was completely sober while doing it. That eighth was the start of something new, a fresh beginning.
Turns out that sometimes the beginning comes after the end.
Buddy saw something in Jeremy Gilbert that he had never seen in Jamie, and that was dollar signs. The kid was a gold mine, as far as Buddy Holland was concerned, and he meant to milk that mine for all it was worth while he still could. 'Cause people like Vicki Donovan would always be looking for a little bit of something, even when they were old and grey with kids and grandkids, she'd be looking for something to keep the tide at bay. But these rich folks, they were fleeting. He predicted Jeremy Gilbert would be rehabilitated, a real class citizen, in a little under a year.
Maybe he'd find a legal hobby, or conform to domestic drug addiction like everyone else with money did. It'd start out desperate, and his hand would slip into his sister's prescription bottle, and the hand would stay there until he developed a taste for the stuff, and Buddy would be out of business. But until then he was all his, more importantly his money was all his. Buddy decided he'd buy those boots today, he needed a new pair anyway, and he had a feeling that money would be coming his way sometime soon.
Watching Jeremy Gilbert as he walked down the drive, Buddy smiled. Oh yeah, he was good for the cash alright.
When Elena woke up to an unusual aching silence, the kind that stemmed from the absence of noise in a typically loud atmosphere, she reasoned that it must be a Saturday. That was the only possible reasoning for it, and it only took a second to register in that pretty little head of hers.
But she didn't wake to the smell of eggs or pancakes like she usually would on a weekend, her Mother wasn't in the kitchen and there were no signs of breakfast or dirty dishes. The cars were gone, she couldn't hear her Father's footsteps resonating against the wooden flooring of his study upstairs, or Jeremy playing music from his room, or the water turning on because Jamie was taking a shower. It was devoid of noise and human presence.
Elena chose to ignore it, because Jamie never left before her on the weekends if no one else was home, she knew Elena hated to be all alone and made sure that she'd be there if no one else was there. It was an unspoken rule, and they were always the ones held with the utmost regard between twins, because they were so bound by those rules they didn't even have to speak in order to follow them.
There was no note from Mom on the fridge, she'd never leave without a note. Jeremy slept in on weekends, but his jacket was gone. Dad would stay in his study for hours on end, pacing helped him think. But Jamie was upstairs. She had to be. It was an unspoken rule.
For some subliminal reason, Elena ran. She ran up the stairs where her Parents room was left untouched since that night and with no traces of Jeremy anywhere. It was Jamie's room that made her sink to the floor, because with her empty room came the truth crashing down on her broken figure.
Jenna had classes. Jeremy was staying at a friends. Her Parents were dead, and Jamie… Jamie was lost.
It hadn't been that long since she'd come home, the hospital had kept her in for some time, time she couldn't recall. Her injuries were still there, the pills sat in the bathroom cabinet. But no one else was there. They were all gone, and with time so would her wounds.
She wouldn't have known it was him except for the pictures, just like Uncle Billy and her grandparents that died when she was young or before she was born.
Jamie kept a picture of her and Johnny on the wall of her bedroom by the mirror. They were on the hood of the car, arms wrapped around each other and cigarettes lit, both smiling. Elena knew the picture was there, but she didn't know that Jamie kept it there to keep her afloat after drowning in her dreams. Didn't know and couldn't even begin to comprehend the sheer importance of it all.
Elena didn't know Johnny. She knew he dated her sister, that he made her smile, that he was her semblance of happiness, but nothing more. She'd been too wrapped up in Matt, her own insecurities and indecisiveness towards the relationship and the future.
He wasn't smiling then, leant against the car with a cigarette in his mouth and a tick in his jaw. It looked like he was ready to leave, and Elena should have let it be but found herself calling out all the same.
"Johnny?" It came out stronger than she'd expected, but she still sounded so unsure of herself.
He turned, and after a minute it seemed like recognition settled before his features smoothed out. "You're Jamie's sister."
Somehow he seemed so sure of himself, settled against the driver's side as he gazed at her coolly. Elena admired him for it, could see how he appealed to Jamie with his rough exterior and tough facade.
There was something frightening about Johnny Marx.
Before she knew it they were talking about Jamie. It hurt, but in a way it was like she was still here.
"It was like pulling teeth getting her to talk about stuff, y'know?" Johnny chuckled, but there was nothing happy about that sound. He sounded tired, like he hadn't slept in weeks. "But when she did bite the bait she'd talk about you."
This was news to Elena, but it did nothing to ease her mind.
"Jeez, your old man's a prize." Delaney muttered, he'd been around long enough to have a few run ins with the Senior Marx as well. Been around long enough to remember a little Johnny Marx jaywalking to school with bruises and what looked like a cigar burn on his wrist, blood on his jacket collar and bruises marring his pretty face.
"Hey, pal, watch your mouth." Johnny retorted icily. Apart from his eyes, frosty going on arctic, being narrowed he showed no signs of conflict. He didn't have to, the eyes were unnerving enough.
Delaney, equally smug as indignant, could never resist poking a bear. "Was that a threat, Marx?"
"You don't rag on a guys old man, it's just basic manners is all." Johnny spoke like it was law.
"Yeah, cuz your old man was a real wallflower."
"Well at least my woman weren't a dirty ole cooze cruising on guys younger than her own son. What, the pension wasn't cutting it no more?"
Johnny didn't get much pleasure out of life, he was hard up with smiles, but the sight of Officer Delaney going red in the face and eyes bulging out of his skill made his lips lift just a tad.
"You better watch yourself, son."
"Maybe you should watch your wife, officer Delaney."
Later that night Johnny found himself in bed with another girl, a busty blonde with big tits and pouty lips. He'd picked her up at a bar he frequented at, where the people knew him by name and the girls knew him by something else. He hadn't been around for a while, he'd been with Jamie and hadn't needed to pick up a girl.
He was awake, sitting for fear of laying next to a strange girl. She wasn't supposed to stay, to fall asleep beside him, but he'd been so used to having Jamie there next to him that he hadn't told her to leave. He'd forgotten, if only for a moment.
God, he was a wreck. Running on no sleep and booze on an empty stomach. Pining after some dead girl who dumped him.
Jamie had dumped him only a few days before she died, like she'd known all along that it was the end. To Johnny it made sense, because Jamie knew everything, somehow she just knew. It wasn't that out there to think she'd known what would happen, at least not in his head.
Her hands roamed over his skin with a wandering touch, and for a moment he let himself pretend it was Jamie.
That it was Jamie running her hands over his shoulders, arms draping themselves across his body as her fingers dipped to his chest. He could stay like that forever, and he wanted to more than anything. But as he opened his eyes, lifting his head just a tad, he caught no signs of Jamie in the broken mirror across the room.
He'd broken it the night she died. Could still feel the damaged skin over his knuckles.
The touch was all wrong all of a sudden, her nails were too long and her hands too soft, she had warm skin and a fake tan.
"Out." Johnny didn't choke, he just said it plain as day in that polar murmur of his.
"What was that, baby?" She cooed, warm breath fanning against his jaw. He felt sick and angry and hopelessly sad. Jamie would have never called him baby, and she would never have come across as desperate.
"Get out." It came out the exact same, but there was something forceful about it somehow.
She clambered off the bed, tripping over the sheets and searching wildly for her clothes. This had been a mistake.
There was no guilt. Dead people didn't care after all. But the problem was that Johnny was alive, and evidently Johnny fucking cared.
Damon had a dream about the girl he met on the road, the one he hadn't had the heart to compel. She was standing in the rain, sopping wet and clothes weighed down, hair stuck to her skin and a weary sigh escaping her lips. Her name, he couldn't remember her name, but he doubted she'd remember his.
That's what led him here, a dingy bar with bad lighting and poor furnishing.
He settled himself at the bar, slumped forward with his elbows resting on the surface and his ass firmly placed on the stool. It was safe to say he wasn't going to be moving anytime soon.
The worst thing about having plans was having to wait. There was no anticipation or build up as of yet, and there wouldn't be for a long while coming, so here he was. At a bar on the outskirts of mystic falls, stewing in his own plots and feeling pitifully bored. Even eternity had its downfalls, he guessed.
Some blonde was eyeing his direction from the opposite side of the bar, though it could have easily been at the guy sitting next to him.
He seemed to be having a worse day than Damon by the looks of things.
Head hanging lowly, one hand loosely holding onto his pint, the other a fist sitting upon the surface of the bar. This guy had problems, alright.
Damon eyed the blonde anyway, because the other guy sure as hell didn't seem interested, not that Damon would care anyway.
"She's an average lay at best, if that's what you're wondering." The guy suddenly piped up, sullen voiced and weary eyed. "Fucking clingy too."
Damon chuckled, "Guess I'll pass."
The guy hummed a response, took another drink from his glass, and settled back into his seat. He nodded to the bartender, who looked relieved when the guy averted his eyes, momentarily unnerved by his gaze.
"So, why are you day drinking?" Usually Damon didn't care, and he sure as hell wouldn't be asking questions, but something about that dream had unsettled him.
He huffed as a new drink was slided across the bar, "A girl."
"Ah, it always comes down to the love of a woman." Damon piped up knowingly, fiddling with his day ring.
"That's your deal too?"
Damon was suddenly reminded of the dream, the remnants of clammy skin and an innate cold spreading through him.
"Me? Partly. But it's five o'clock somewhere."
(AN: This isn't an actual chapter sorta deal, but it is a sign of gratitude. Thanks for 150 followers and 100 favourites, it's absolutely bitchin'. And most importantly, Happy St. Paddy's day, you filthy fucking animals!)