Maven
The world is a blurry, soundless thing. It is devoid of any distractions. The music is loud enough to drown the sounds of the street. Cars rushing by. Gliding cones through the half-light, filtered by something wet drizzling down on him. Half frozen, half faint misty rain, it lays as a cover over his head and shoulders.
The music drowns It is loud enough to keep the world at bay. For some time, at least.
It's the oldest strategy of them all. Avoiding, distracting. But it works well enough.
The world never truly leaves anyway.
It shapes again as soon as he pulls down his headphones and the world suffocates him for a second.
Do the right thing.
You know what to do.
What is the right thing?
It's going to be a surprise, for sure. He's sure Thomas doesn't expect him. But you don't discuss anything like this over the phone.
The tip of the key shakes a little when he holds it in front of the lock.
It's just a key. A small metallic object with the simple purpose to unlock doors.
He should just do that. Unlock the door.
It is easy. A simple turn, a push.
The key is relatively new and without any scratches. It shines silver in the dim light of the staircase. Things are never just one thing at all. Especially not gifts.
This key is like a message.
I trust you enough to let you come and go. The key says. No pressure. No expectations.
But of course, that is not true at all. Because using the key itself fulfills expectations.
Gifts are meant to invoke something in the people you give them to.
They can be practical, like a jacket to a boy that doesn't even wear socks and sleeps behind a dumpster.
They can be an offer for peace, or just small debts repaid like a silver flash drive or a phone call. Not letting the other person know that it was an effort.
Sometimes gifts are not gifts at all.
The staircase always smells rotting.
It stings in his nose, pricks all his senses.
He finally moves his hand and unlocks the door. "What is THAT Tommy?" The voice of Thomas sister greets him, desperately and confused.
He could move straight into the kitchen. It is only a few strides down the narrow hallway. He'd pass Thomas bedroom door. He's done it a million times. Why does he stop and listen?
"Yeah remember that ground beef?" Thomas asks.
"It's white?" she asks confused.
"Nah, that's just because I put sour cream into it."
He closes the door carefully, stepping out of his shoes. The floor is clean and someone clearly cleared the usual mess of Thomas jackets and scarfs madly tangled and half lying on the floor.
"There was no sour cream in our fridge."
"What was the white stuff?" Thomas wonders.
"I want to puke." A second female voice says grimly. Maven stops one foot half in motion. Breathing shallow. "He should be banned from cooking."
"Yeah but you're used to Nanny cooking and she's really good, "Thomas tries to defend whatever spawn of hell he has summoned on a plate again. "It doesn't look that bad."
Hannah sighs. It's that frustrated sound she always makes when it comes to her brother. Not that he would know all too much about it. "Mare, back me up."
Something strange happens when he hears her voice. There's something snapping inside his head. It almost feels like someone has shattered something. Fractured and broken and uncontrollable.
"Thomas, how did you survive alone?" Her voice asks, not snide, but almost genuinely worried. Of course, she'd worry about someone as sweet and chaotic as Thomas.
"This." Hannah huffs. "Is A perversion of nature."
"An abomination."
"I'd say you need to burn it. But it is already burned."
And then he makes another step forward because he will not be the one to be easily defeated. It's all about victory or death, for once. Some things make you weak sometimes but when they are over you can easily see their appeal. You can even overcome whatever appeal they had.
Hannah is the first one to see him, leaning by the fridge. She frowns alarmed.
There's a tall girl lounging lazily on the chair, dark arms peeking from too short sleeves with holes in it, crossed behind her head. Cameron Cole, for sure. She's a permanent thing in Thomas stories and images. Though he never had the pleasure to meet her himself. She sneers silently at him but doesn't move.
Thomas stands with the back to the hallway and leans over the stove. He looks at the thing in the pot. "What? No. It's perfectly fine. "
"I'm not going to eat that." Mare doesn't try to hide her disgust. "And neither are you."
"But I am hungry." Thomas tries to argue.
Cole on the chair makes a disgusted noise in the back of her throat with so much passion one ought to applaud her. But it doesn't really matter. He still looks over to Thomas and Mare.
It's grotesque seeing them next to each other because in comparison, there's something familiar and friendly and it stings.
It doesn't help there's nothing left of the open honesty he had in store for Thomas. Instead, he stares back in a mixture of something cold and poisonous, crawling right under his skin.
„This isn't happening." She says, and he feels the anger like cackling electricity building inside her.
„I am certain it is," Maven says, and Thomas shoots him a glare.
Oh, if looks could kill there'd be a room full of corpses right now.
"No no," Thomas surrenders palms up in the air, stepping between them. As if that was not useless.
"It has been awhile." Maven feels his mouth say. „And I had imagined it differently. I missed your birthday."
It does hold a certain sense of satisfaction.
"Stop," Thomas says.
"I'd have written you a message, but that would have indicated I care enough."
"And it's not because your mother keeps you on a leash and you pretend to not be a monster for Thomas."
"Stop," Thomas says. "Seriously."
And he doesn't say it to her. He doesn't even look at her. He only glares at Maven.
"You don't need to protect me," Her face is hard and unfriendly, with something akin to deep-rooted hurt, it's laced into her eyes, even if she doesn't want to acknowledge it.
"Yeah no, I know you can punch him. But I just..," Thomas says he looks over for the first time. He blows out a stream of air, looks back to where Maven is frozen. "Why didn't you call?"
"Because you gave me a key and said I should surprise you."
"Great surprise." a voice mutters from the chair.
"Please leave." Thomas urges.
A moment of silence goes by, words swinging along, a silent accusation.
"You are on her side." he realizes. For a second in his poorly wired brain that is all that counts.
"No, but...I mean, you fucked her over and treated her like shit." Thomas mutters.
"Nothing of that would have happened if you hadn't left me." The words come out of his mouth, cross the distance and bury inside Thomas' ears. He can see the impact, how the accusation spreads. Like poison, it curls through his head.
It's like every effort, every bit of work has been nullified. Truth pacts are useless and every bit of genuine patience has drained from Thomas body. One year has been erased from existence.
Stop, stop, not again, a voice in his head screams. His mouth doesn't obey the rule.
"Alright girls, " Hannah mutters. "Pack together. We probably should …"
"What? No." Cameron answers and throws him another look. He doesn't even see it. It's like he has some tunnel vision.
Some sort of circuit is malfunctioning, and he can't even look at her anymore, or the way the only person he remotely trusts has build some sort of wall to fend him off.
"What?" Thomas asks. He doesn't look like he ever expected that accusation to rise again.
"You heard that. You promised me to stay and try and you left me. You never called. You didn't care even though all you had to do was wait. If you had waited I'd never have even looked her way."
"I came back!" Thomas yells. "I came back because you were right and I was wrong and you said it was alright and then you told me you loved another girl, literally fucked me and ghosted me. I almost died last week and I didn't make a drama of it?"
"We agreed you shouldn't have asked to come along and that you never will again."
"Yeah, I did, because that's how I am. Stupid Thomas has no five-year plan and just wants people to be happy." He chuckles without much humor. The chuckle turns into a hissing breath and a face turned away.
"How could I be happy when you turn on me?"
"Maven," is all Mare Barrow says but it's enough to send another jolting shiver of anger and panic and something numb through his body.
"You're next." he promises.
The color has drained from Thomas' face. "Are you out of your mind? What is fucking wrong with you?"
They'll say you are crazy. You don't want people to say you are crazy. You know what happens with crazy people.
"I don't know where this is going. But it fucking hurts. This isn't alright."
"And now what? You ask me to leave again?"
"I don't know!"
He wants to bite the tip of his tongue off. "Do you want your key back, Thomas? Perhaps give it to someone that isn't crazy."
There's no snappy comeback or even yelling. Just something shrinking inside Thomas' face and the way he hunches over like he just got punched in the stomach.
"I am fine with you working on that. Why would I always defend you and stick around otherwise?"
"Maybe you're just afraid you don't find anyone else because everytime someone tells you that you're smart or beautiful you don't believe it."
He doesn't look him in the face. A perfect copy of all the times they fought and Thomas just bolted straight out. Running away, fast, because perhaps the words can't find him when he goes. It makes him angrier. He doesn't have a right to be this irrational. There's no logic in the attack. But it sits so well, it hurts him at all the right places.
"You just prove my point." Maven's voice sounds cold.
For a second Thomas looks like he's about to cry. Then it's gone, nothing to blame him but something tired and empty. "You always had a talent for making me feel really good or terribly worthless. Nothing in between."
"I was wondering if we'd reach this peak again." Maven huffs. "Come on, you go first. Maybe I can actually work through it on my own. And if I don't, you can always brag you tried, but that crazy silver rich kid was always too much to take anyway."
And as soon as he has said the words everything moves. He ignores the way Maven silently watches him, trying to fight out the right words. Words for another apology. Words to heal and not to hurt. Things have gone sour this evening. They weren't perfect before but they kept moving in the right direction and now it's over again.
And before he knows there's the snap of a hand hitting straight into his face. He admittedly counted on any of them to hit him.
It still burns and stings with more surprise than he can muster when he looks down, sees the angry pale face and remembers the way they used to sit together, three of them (there's Mare and Maven and Cal and it's alright, somehow, even though it is not) in the middle of the night. And despite everything that was bad it counted enough for him to remember.
The birthday gift for the one he missed, he guesses.
She says something. But he can't really hear it. He just stares and wonders why his cheek turns numb when the rest of himself isn't.
It's over.
Thomas is pale and shaking.
It's over.
He grabs his shoes. Maven clenches his hand around his cheek.
It's over.
Neither Thomas or Mare look back. Rather leave and run than ever looking at him.
There's the tall frame of Cameron Cole lurking in the kitchen.
"Asshats, where are you going?" she shouts but Thomas just bolts.
He's so good at that.
It doesn't stop. Why doesn't it just stop? Why are the words stuck in the back of his throat when he needs them the most?
"Fan fucking tastic." Cole snorts. Her eyes are narrow and hostile. He couldn't care less. "Good job, you silver pile of shit."
"It's none of your business anyway." he scoffs softly.
"Yeah no, it is. Because I am the one cleaning up after you."
"Do you go after him or do I?" Hannah asks from a safe distance. Her voice is small. Her dark eyes are marbles, round and small and lifeless. Everything seems to has lost some more color and interest.
" You know him." She's my best friend, Thomas used to say. There was always some fondness in his voice. " And I really want to punch you in your fucking evil face right now," she says, hands clenched to fists. "But you're lucky cause you already got smacked. Imma go after them."
Because she doesn't want to stay as long as he is here.
He's left alone with his late-night acquaintance Hannah, still shuffling and looking unsure. He still holds his cheek. The pain is only a faint echo, but he still feels her fingers on his skin. He doesn't even want to think about it. He lets go of his cheek.
"I hope that hurt," Hannah says.
His other hand still holds the key.
He looks at it, turns it around. The metal has warmed in his fingers. But it doesn't provide any solace. No consolidation. Just another broken mess. "As always you're a darling."
"You're not dating me but my brother, so I don't need to kiss your ass, Maven," she says with only the slightest hint of anger. "And I tolerated you because I don't want my brother to run away and hide somewhere again. Oh wait, look what happened."
It'd be easy. Smashing something. Burning something. Hissing something at her so she'd crumble together and call him a monster.
Maybe he is. Maybe he really always was just that.
"Thomas is a dork. He is silly and he can act like a child. But he's my little brother." There's something in her face, the shadow of semblance to someone else. He wants to scratch it off, say something that stops her. He has no words. Pale, nightmarish anger and fear are curled up in his chest." I love him. And whatever your idea of love means, for me it's loyalty. So I stick with him whatever he does. And he's like that too. He's sticking with you even though everyone gives him shit about it all the time."
The key disappears in his pocket. He closes his fingers around it. "I always told him he deserves better."
"And you think he can just walk away? Know those birds that mate for life? There you got Thomas."
"Everyone leaves eventually."
"Wow. You are really delusional. I can't even be mad at you. " she huffs. "In the name of everyone you ever fucked over, hurt and left. Get your shit together or leave them alone."
Give me something whole and good. I'll gladly break it for you.