AN:
Okay, guys, this is a freaking long chapter, so I don't want to keep you, but I have a few words of warning first:
The M rating starts here and now. There are going to be some trigger words that I'm sure a lot of you won't like and adult themes that aren't going to be classed as 'healthy.' That's the thing I wanted to portray, though—that oftentimes, being in love doesn't make your actions honourable or less subject to judgment or ridicule. Love is painful and it's crazy and people in love often treat each other in completely reprehensible ways. If anything, I've found that love, for all its virtues, makes everything seem murky and the confusion from that just breeds hostility and resentment at times. So be warned. I want to hear your thoughts, but if your thoughts are that you don't think Mike and El would treat each other this way, just remember: no relationship is perfect, and without proper communication, there is almost certainly going to be a tremendous amount of pain and unpredictability.
And on that cheerful note, happy reading. :D
-Inara x
Eight In the Cold Light, I Live
The Keegan house was a French style stone mansion set back from the suburban street like the family was afraid of getting the stench of 'poor' stuck in their clothes. Jane had always found it ridiculous that money created such barriers. There was something so fearful about the layout of the house; solid like a fortress, sheltered in the shadow of a towering brick wall. What a defence. What a thin veil for the fear within, superficial as it was.
The Keegan boys' lives had been permeated by fear. Scott, the collegiate older brother who relied on his friends in high places and his father's pocketbook to get him through law school. He was the heir to the Keegan fortune—God forbid he didn't transcend the meagre standards set by the Hawkins upper crust. Not when his father had made his mark in London, New York, Boston. And Isaac. Jane had been in school with Isaac. Like his brother before him, he'd been the star quarterback of Hawkins High School and all-around town charmer. He said what he needed to say, when he needed to say it—to staff and parents, to girls, to his posse of moronic dying-to-bes who just weren't quite 'star material' themselves… They both spent so much energy chasing after perfect, Jane almost felt sorry for them. Almost.
She'd only been to their house once before—for the Homecoming afterparty in senior year. Jane was so glad being here didn't stir up more hazy memories. A part of her had been dreading a sudden flashback to more unchartered moments lived, and the idea that she could have been here with Scott sometime after the rally had held her close to vomiting the whole drive over.
Mike hadn't spoken a word to her since they'd left Steve and Dustin's. Back in the apartment, he'd taken her hand—with pointed reluctance—and risen to his feet.
"Even if it's all true," he said impassively, looming over her.
It was the second time they'd stood close enough for Jane to feel the pull of him—the magnetism that reduced her to a tenuous statuette of metallic slivers in heart, mind, and cunt—and all she wanted was the summons to damn caution and let instinct overwhelm her.
She felt entirely bare, pinned like a butterfly under the intensity of his dark eyes, but it wasn't passion that fuelled him. At least, not passion of the same kind.
"Even if Ford is a sick son of a bitch and you're just as much a victim in this as Claudia," he tendered. "I still owe you nothing. You understand? Those two people we used to be—they're never coming back."
She understood. Her body certainly didn't as it unreservedly yearned for him to be closer—so close that they couldn't even be considered separate—but her rational mind understood.
Four years didn't just disappear.
But even after she nodded—even when they were both standing there, just breathing and staring, prisoners to each other's gazes as the moments stretched and faded—he was still holding her hand.
He'd noticed eventually, ripping his hand out of hers and severing the tie. Jane had found it difficult to recover quickly and she wondered if, like his had always been without mystery to her, he could read her feelings right off her face.
She hadn't felt that sense of wanting in so long. Emotionally, yes, but physically, her desire had been as barren as a creek bed in a drought. It was like they fabled of the Romans salting the ground of Carthage out of spite: so nothing could grow ever again.
Maybe it was the effect of the drugs fading, but all Jane had had to withstand up until this point were the emotional feelings of loss and wanting that hung heavy in the space between them. Now, the tension was thicker. What had before been the empty space where all the things she should have said—all the things still waiting to be said—should have been, was now surging and bristling, like electricity in the air before a storm, with all the things she should have done. It didn't feel empty anymore. It felt dangerous.
She wondered if it was similar for him. Obviously, they came to the board from opposite sides. He was the noble white knight who had shed blood in defence of a truth he believed in—one he had never questioned was worth believing in. Not until she'd advanced to the fore; the black queen, swathed in deceit, who had slaughtered him in pursuit of a greater target. To Ford, he had been the first of many obstacles—a minor annoyance—and he'd been swatted like a fly as such. No fanfare or glory; just death.
Jane wondered if, beneath his severity and attempted detachment, Mike was afraid of that quiet death occurring twice. There was nothing noble or honourable about being left to bleed out and rot, alone in the cold. She'd cut him away like a gangrenous limb. It was incredible how something that had always been attached to you—a part of you—could be so foreign and strange and grossly repugnant in an instant.
But he had to know—Jane was sure, he had to know—that he was no gangrenous limb and she was no butcher. The infection that had spread through her from the stump and into her heart—her very being—was Ford; it was Ford and Welling and everyone who had ever puppeted her perception or considered her an experiment. Mike was the angel who watched over her from beyond; he was the antibiotics injected right into the vein. Just the thought of him sometimes—like on those lonely nights at Central State when Jane lost herself thinking about how long a life sentence really was—was enough to keep her heart beating. Whether he realised it or not, he was always the one who saved her.
That's why this change in the air was dangerous. They weren't teenagers anymore but Jane knew it wasn't a matter of hormones that made her clear-headed self unable to distinguish between sex and love with him. It sounded utterly Shakespearean, but she didn't know if she had the strength to be near him and not be his to temper. Even prior to chemical intervention, she'd always suffered the ailment of a wildly turbulent disposition. But it was especially gruelling, feeling so much, so quickly again, after years of conditioning herself and being conditioned to lethargy. Mike had always been her eye of the storm. It wasn't a matter of being regulated or controlled by him, but more one of channelling his calm. Unshakeable, steady Mike. He was her great and only love for more than one reason.
Or he had been. Once.
For her, he always would be but he was right—those two kids had loved and lost. It was just a dream, the idea that they could be like them again now.
But it was her dream.
Mike pressed the gate intercom and told the housekeeper his name and that he was here to see Scott. She didn't sound too bothered, like she was eager to stay out of Scott's way. All that security and no human defence. Scott had to be one hell of a prince to garner that kind of loyalty.
They drove right up to the main house and, still smeared in makeup, Jane didn't seem to raise any eyebrows as the older woman ushered them up the staircase inside the foyer, telling them they'd find Scott on the second level in the billiards room. Social as Scott had always been, it was probably nothing outside the usual for the woman to receive young visitors on his behalf and direct them on.
As they passed several open doors leading to leisure rooms of varied description, it became clear that no one else was home. Mid-Sunday morning, Mr and Mrs Keegan were probably in town having brunch with the rest of their mannerly entourage. Isaac was probably off training or extricating himself from a woman's bed, if he at all resembled his high school self anymore.
Jane found it vaguely disturbing, how the rich tended to remain in the family fold long after the appropriate time passed to leave the nest. Isaac was only twenty-two, but Scott had been in Steve's graduating year. Only a few years shy of thirty was, for most people, too old to still have one's wings tucked close to the body. Then again, the mansion, much like the Keegan name itself, was a part of their brand—it was, after all, the image that they were selling. Besides the obvious question of why one would leave a place that catered to one's every whim and desire, there was the additional quandary: if not this, what would the home that epitomised one's future look like?
Mike was first through the door to the billiards room. From behind his back, Jane could hear the soft click of balls and a slight rustle as one of them found the pocket nearest them. Mike stopped moving when the other man registered him, and the long silence indicated to Jane that maybe Scott didn't even remember him.
Not, it would seem, the case. Quite the opposite.
"Wheeler?"
The sound of his voice stirred the queasiest feeling in Jane's stomach. It reminded her of all the days she'd spent sick with hunger at Central State, before her body had grown used to the neglect.
"You're the last guy I'd ever expect to see here."
"It's not a social call, believe me." Mike's voice was even. Worryingly even.
"What is it, then?" More clicking, and Scott sounded marginally sardonic. "Finally here to teach me a lesson for sticking it to your girlfriend back in eighty-nine? Come on, man, it only took you four years."
"I know how long it's been," Mike bit out.
Scott exhaled slowly and the clicking ceased. "Okay, for real, man, is that why you've come into my house—you wanna get even? Take a swing at me, I won't stop you. But I'm not the bad guy here. That girl was toxic. She didn't need to climb me like a tree for you to be better off without her."
Mike, who'd been rigid throughout this whole exchange, broke his robotic stance at that and went to step toward Scott. Jane didn't know what he was planning to do or if he was even thinking at all, but as hard-line as Mike could be, he had never been a fighter. Four years didn't suddenly change that.
She caught him by the back of his blazer and pulled him back beside her, pressing one hand firmly against his chest to restrain him.
She turned her focus on her previous mistake.
"Oh, Scott." He'd said toxic—she'd give him toxic. "Now you've gone and hurt my feelings."
Scott's eyes went wide and he clamped both hands down on his pool cue, as if wielding it as self-protection.
"Who the hell let you into my house?" he blurted.
Releasing Mike, Jane stepped in his direction, raising an eyebrow. "Do you really think that's your primary concern in this second?"
For every step she took toward him, Scott took a step back.
"You're supposed to be locked up!" he insisted. "You're crazy!"
"Am I?" Jane looked disappointed. "See, that's the thing that always got me about the battle between the sexes. When there's something wrong with a guy, it's a black mark against his name for about two seconds. Like you, for example." She gestured to Scott, who she was shepherding into a corner. "You were a dumbass and a fully-fledged adult who fucked a high school girl, but both of those flaws were quickly forgotten when they struck 'crazy' against my name. You don't even need a murder to lock that reputation down—a girl is almost always screwed as soon as she's labelled 'crazy.' It's like nothing out of her mouth makes sense anymore. Does that seem fair to you?"
She had Scott up against a wall and it was almost funny that he genuinely seemed afraid of her right now. Unfortunately, that humour stemmed from the fact that the last time she'd seen him he'd been ramming her hips into the counter-top and grunting "Oh, fuck yeah, baby!" So, despite the dichotomy between then and now, it was anything but funny.
"The thing is, Scott," she said as she pressed her palm flat against his chest and steered him around so the backs of his thighs were pressed against the edge of the billiards table. "There are a couple of tiny details they missed out at my trial—details that could allow my late father to finally rest in peace." She leaned in closer to him and lowered her voice. "See, I'm not really crazy, Scott, but I promise I can make an exception if you don't tell me what I want to know."
"What can I tell you?" Scott looked around wildly, his gaze falling on Mike. "Bro, cage your bitch, all right? I don't know what she's talking about!"
Ignoring the name-calling, Jane grabbed him by the jaw and turned his face back to hers. "What did I ask you for, Scott, the night of the rally?"
His eyes stretched wide. "What, are you kidding me? A ride to heaven, sweetheart. Apparently your boy here wasn't doing the job well enough."
Jane threw up her free hand as Mike's face contorted in fury and he braced himself to take a run at Scott again.
"Mike," Jane cautioned steadily, not releasing Scott's gaze. "We came here for a reason, remember?"
In her peripheral vision, she saw Mike standing very still, still poised to attack, fists clenched.
"Mike," she repeated, voice soothing.
Reluctantly, he relaxed, and she lowered her defensive hand.
"You're really not very smart, are you, Scott? You want his help, but you piss him off. You don't want me to hurt you, but you call me a crazy bitch and then talk to Mike like I'm not even here. You're really taking 'playing the field' to a whole new level, and I really don't mean that as a compliment."
Despite her tiny stature, she used the talents she did have to push him back onto the green felt a little further, and he threw his hands back to stop himself from falling.
"Whoa, what are you trying to do to me—mount me again while Wheeler watches?"
She rolled her eyes. "Honey, you weren't even what I wanted the first time around."
"How about the second?" he muttered. "You seemed to enjoy yourself fine when you came back gagging for me in the mayor's office."
Like electricity in the air again, Jane felt Mike's reaction like it had been shocked right into her veins. His sudden intake of breath, the clench of his fists, his inability to constrain the utter betrayal that broke out across his face, too sudden and consuming to keep it hidden inside. Jane couldn't meet his eyes. She could only imagine how much this news hurt him, after everything. The thing was, though, it was news to her, too.
Her flat palm became a fist in Scott's shirt and she yanked him forward, bringing them eye to eye.
"What did you say?" she demanded, eyes gleaming with the promise to flay him if he lied to her.
"The mayor's office," he answered tensely. "After the game. You came in for round two and left me naked in the copy room, no pants on hand." His face twisted, revisiting the memory. "Why would you take my pants?"
"So you couldn't follow me," Jane realised aloud, glancing over at Mike.
He glanced back and then away, understanding the gravity of this new insight but still unable to speak—still unable to even properly look at her.
Heart squeezing, she turned back to Scott. "So that first night, I didn't say anything else?"
"We didn't exactly spend much time talking." He nodded warily in Mike's direction. "Once Wheeler here stormed off, you said 'see ya 'round' and left. I thought that was the end of it until you showed up in Culkin's office."
"But we did it in the copy room?" Jane questioned, like she couldn't believe anything he said until she had the details for everything.
He nodded. "Yeah, but only because Culkin came back. We practically had to commando crawl out of there when he came through the door."
"Hence the copy room," Jane said. "But did I seem at all inquisitive—in the office, I mean?"
"I don't know why you're asking me. You were there too." When she just glared him down, he held up his hands. "I don't know, you fiddled around with his desk drawers a bit, I think. Said something about the keys to the kingdom. You were joking, though, right? I mean, this is Hawkins. What's the point of all-access in Hawkins?"
"What's the point, indeed," Jane muttered. Releasing him suddenly, she turned to Mike. "If Culkin was still there when I left Scott in the copy room, anything could've happened to him."
Mike was frowning, looking reluctant to even address him, but finally he asked Scott, "Hey, Keegan—about how long were you hiding amongst the printers?"
Scott shrugged unhelpfully. "I don't know. Would've been a while."
"Did El have anything on her—a bag or something?" Mike followed up.
Scott's face screwed up in confusion. "El?"
"Jane."
"Oh. Uh…" Bless him, he really did look like he was trying to remember. "Nothing, I don't think. Just a short little skirt and a pair of boots. That's all I remember, anyway."
"Of course, it is," Mike spat, but Jane's thoughts were elsewhere.
"Boots?" Jane echoed. "What kind of boots?"
Scott looked like he really didn't understand why that mattered. "Uh… Black? To the knee? Why does that matter?"
Jane felt her heart sink. "Oh, it matters. It matters a whole lot."
Knee-high boots. Plenty of space to conceal a syringe or pills in boots like that. Even if it hadn't gone that far, a bug or listening device of some description. But Ford had demonstrated thus far that he hadn't limited his use of her to just surveillance. If he'd made her an assassin's guide once, what would have stopped him from just making her an assassin straight-up? Maybe he knew she couldn't kill Hopper herself, even drugged out of her mind. But a near-stranger? Jane didn't have the same faith that she would have had the presence of mind to spare a near-stranger.
For any normal person, it would have been a leap. For Jane, on the other hand, it was starting to feel like things like this were nothing more than a small shuffle.
"Scott, was Culkin still there?" Her voice was suddenly urgent. "Was he still in his office when you left that night?"
"How should I know?" he responded. "I made a break for my car, first chance I got. I figured it'd be easier to suffer the rap for letting myself off early than explain to my boss why I wasn't wearing pants." Seeing her dissatisfied expression, he offered, "But it wouldn't have mattered anyway. He died on the footpath."
"He died that night? You're absolutely sure?" Jane clarified. "Scott, didn't you think that was a little weird?"
He shrugged. "Guy was old. He ate sausages from Maggie's Café every day. Heart attack wasn't exactly off the cards."
Jane rubbed her temples. "Okay, so, what time would that have been?"
Scott groaned impatiently, like she really needed to learn which questions he'd be able to answer. "Late? Does it matter? Why do you care so much what happened that night anyway? You got what you came for."
"Did I?"
God, he really was an idiot. Jane felt Mike tug on her sleeve and she let him pull her aside.
His voice was deathly low as he said, "If you went to all that trouble of getting inside, why would Culkin have died after finishing up? What'd you do, create the perfect excuse to wait around inside the building, then jump him on his way to his car? It doesn't make sense, El."
Jane chewed her lip. "I mean, it could've been a delayed reaction? Poison or something? I don't know—maybe it really was a coincidence and I was just using Scott to wait until everyone was gone to lift something from Culkin's office? If he was still there, I couldn't have done that."
"Unlikely, since the goal was to take the office for Jack Hopper." Mike frowned and amended, "Or, the probable goal. What would Ford have needed so badly he couldn't wait for his buddy to take office? The emergency election was the fastest one I've ever heard of—if they were after the 'keys to the kingdom', they only had to wait a couple of weeks, tops." He sighed. "El, you know I think all of this is crazy, but I also think that if you were there that night and you weren't just there for"—he winced—"Keegan, then the mayor was your most likely target."
A thought occurred to Jane. "What if it wasn't just a delayed reaction? What if the reason he died on the kerb was because I didn't finish the job inside?"
"Why wouldn't you have finished the job inside?" Mike asked.
"Maybe I got spooked when I heard Scott leaving?" she proposed. "Maybe somebody else was there. I don't know. All I know is, if I was sent there to do a job, I wouldn't have left until it was done."
"Hence waiting around outside, if you thought inside was compromised." Mike nodded, as if—under the crazy circumstances they found themselves in—this scenario was sound thus far. "It would've been really late by then. Plus, the game had everyone over on the other side of town. No one would've been around to see anything—at least if you were quick. But why would it have taken so long inside? I mean, it looked like a heart attack and we know drugs are Ford's strong suit…" He looked doubtful now. "I mean, think about it: how long does it take to jab a needle? And on top of that, I know he was old, but I seriously doubt Culkin would've quietly let you approach him again if you already attacked him once."
"Maybe he didn't know it was me the first time?" Jane offered lamely. "Maybe I took him by surprise or covered his eyes or something?"
Mike still didn't look convinced. "El, whether he knew it was you or not, he still would've been skittish. And again, the needle. You'd think Ford would've made it so the job would be quick."
"What if there were two needles?" she thought aloud. "Two compounds designed to react with each other rather than one designed to react with receptors in the body?"
"You really are a junkie," he muttered, and she shot him a stern look. He eased up. "Okay, two needles—working theory. Is there any way to prove that? We can't exactly just walk up to Mr Clarke and ask him what two compounds they could have been."
"We don't need to." Jane sized up the pros and cons of a different plan she was working up in her head. She grimaced at all the ways it could go wrong. Unfortunately, this one involved bringing in another person, too. "I know someone else who could help us out: Beatriz, the clerk at Mary Sue's. She's a pharmacy dropout."
Mike gaped at her doubtfully. "Are you kidding me?"
"What?" She rocked back on her heels, feeling the absence of his vote of confidence like a slap to the face. "She could help us."
"She's a dropout!" he hissed. "You just said it! And besides that, even if she could help us, why would she? El, you're an escaped mental patient who also happens to be a murderer!"
"I'm not a murderer!" she snapped, then remembered this whole exchange with Scott. "Well, not of my own volition anyway. And besides, I was in Mary Sue's the other day. Bee knows me. If this all goes to shit and she finds out who I am, she's far more likely to snitch if she doesn't know the full story."
"And, what?" Mike was making it very clear he thought this was her stupidest idea to date. "You're going to tell her, are you?"
She set her jaw. "I thought I might."
He rolled his eyes, groaning. "You are so infuriating!"
"Well, if you put that up against bloodthirsty and insane, it doesn't really rate too highly on the list, does it?" she retorted.
"Fine!" He sucked in a much-needed calming breath. "We'll go talk to this Beatriz, then we stop bringing in new people. Agreed?"
"Agreed." Jane turned back to Scott, who'd just been sitting on the edge of the pool table in a daze for the last couple of minutes. She kind of felt sorry for the guy; four years since the town freak stole his pants and was put away for murder and now she turns up at his door and threatens him? A bit surreal.
Unfortunately for him, he was about to be threatened just a little bit more.
"Scott." Her tone was harsh and domineering. "If you tell anybody I'm here in Hawkins or that you saw me with Mike, I'm going to come back here, tie each other your limbs to a corner of this table, and carve my full name into your vital organs. Do you understand?"
He flinched. "I thought the whole point of this was that you weren't crazy?"
"I'm not," she replied. "But the police are rotten from the top down and I'm only going to prove that if you stay out of my way. For old time's sake, don't add your name to my list. You got it?"
His shoulders slumped slightly. "Got it."
"You better have." Jane locked eyes with Mike and jerked her head toward the door. "Let's go."
They were crossing the foyer when Scott called down to her over the balustrade, "Hey, wait!"
She looked up.
He looked torn, like he didn't know whether to trust her and furthermore, whether he was okay with taking the chance. Seemed to be a common problem going around lately.
When he eventually found his words, they were about the last ones Jane had expected to hear.
"Culkin was a grumpy old bastard, but he was a decent guy, you know?" Scott hesitated. "He was patient with me."
Jane felt her expression soften a fraction. She was in no way about to befriend the guy, but she couldn't exactly hate him. Besides having a gross fetish for the complimentary and just-old-enough, he wasn't an authentic dickhead. He just tried really, really hard.
She replied up to him, "I'm going to figure it out, Scott. I promise. I'm going to figure it all out."
"You do that," he said. "Now we've both got promises to keep. Don't make me regret this, okay?"
Jane shook her head. "I'm not in the habit of breaking promises."
And glancing at Mike, whom she realised had been watching her but looked away as soon as she met his eyes, she shed the mansion's sturdy walls and tipped her face up toward the sun. The light was weak and not quite warm, but it was real. No more fluorescent lights, no more basements. No more cages. Whatever happened down this road, she couldn't forget that she was really alive again now. She wouldn't stop digging; she'd ruin Ford and Welling and burn Fause to the ground if she had to. But she had to do it with her eyes truly open now. She had to appreciate that all this pain and all this duplicity and falseness and outright corruption and criminality was only coming to the surface now because she was here, awake and breathing. Finally. She had to remember.
She owed it to the others who were not.
Like the drive over, the drive back was quiet, just the rumble of the car for background noise.
Only once did Mike speak to her, and apparently it only took the once for him to learn his lesson.
"You've been here two days," he said, like he was marvelling at the outlandishness of something.
When he didn't follow up that thought with anything else, she prompted, "And?"
"And you've already met a girl in a lingerie store!" he criticised, staring at the road. "I mean, seriously, where are your priorities?"
She narrowed her eyes at him. "I left Central State with the gown on my back and the one pair of giant one-size-fits-all-or-thereabouts unisex underpants, Mike. Forgive me if I needed to stockpile a few things."
It was a really, really bad time for a joke—especially a really un-funny joke—but there was something about the horribly unpleasant, awkward tension inside the car that made making things even more awkward impossible for Jane to resist.
"Besides."
Mike side-glanced at her suspiciously because he recognised that tone.
She sighed dramatically. "A girl's not really free until she's dressed downstairs to party, wouldn't you agree?"
He didn't respond and he most certainly didn't smile. His fingers just tightened on the steering wheel and they drove the rest of the way back to the main shopping district in silence.
Before Dustin's grand jailbreak, Jane hadn't really had access to mirrors since being moved to Central State—she certainly hadn't seen herself in any photographs. She'd wondered for a while what a convicted Jane Hopper looked like, then she'd realised it was probably best not to have confirmation of what she feared: a gaunt little skeleton, hair and eyes and skin dull from a lack of Vitamin D and non-recycled air and an over-abundance of drugs ingested. She hadn't wanted to be vain about it, coming home to Hawkins, but on Friday night, after the boys had gone to sleep, she must have spent hours staring at herself in the mirror after brushing her teeth.
So, that's it, she remembered thinking. That's me now.
She'd thought about it again, in those first moments in the Fause building when Mike had stared at her like he had no idea who or what he was looking at.
A brief flash of that skeletal, shadowy face in the bathroom mirror and she was unable to suppress the thought: That is how he's seeing me.
She'd really avoided looking since. She figured that with enough time, enough sunlight, enough calories… She could be a stranger to herself again, only this time it would be worth the wait.
It was only as they drove into the central business district and pulled up opposite Mary Sue's that Jane realised even that was a pipe dream. How stupid of her to think she could be here—really be here—and not have her past follow her.
The posters were everywhere, the same awful photo of her pale, thin face stretched taut around sunken, vacant eyes plastered to every wall and tree within sight. Her patient's record photo—in which, incidentally, she really did look like a psycho.
Jane's eyelids slipped closed as she tried to block it out.
Now it wasn't just her friends or Mike; now it was her whole world. Everyone knew the face she was trying to hide, even from herself—her real face. The one that didn't feel like a mask when she did brave herself in the mirror and admitted silently that it was still there and that she could slather it in makeup to her heart's desire but until all of this was over, it would still be there, unchanging.
Being a fugitive really was a lot like being a ghost.
Jane was here, but she wasn't. She wasn't allowed to be. Alone here in the car with Mike, this was one of those times she felt most strongly that people didn't even want her to be.
But she wanted to be. She wanted to be seen. She wanted them to see her.
Just not like this.
"Looks like word finally got around you were missing," Mike said tensely, his eyes carving out the street for possible surveyors.
Jane worried her lip. "I could always go in alone? You could get as far away from here as possible? You guys know everything now. If I get caught, you can figure this out without me. You can finish this—"
"Don't be stupid—we're not finishing this without you!" Mike spat. "You think we got you back for two days so you could play the sacrificial lamb again? What a fucking stupid thing to say."
Mildly surprised at the exact wording of the ardent dismissal, and even more confused by the plausible sentiment behind it, Jane sunk down a bit in her seat. She was tiny enough at the moment to be mistaken for a child at a glance, if her height were obscured. It was difficult though—as narrow as she was from every possible angle, her frame was still steadfastly long-legged and reedy, and Mike's car was practically a matchbox. Knobbly knees or not, they were still jammed against the dash.
She huffed and sat back up. "Plan B?"
Mike opened his mouth to respond when a cop car turned down the street behind them, the deputy riding shotgun on his radio.
Mike panicked and grasped Jane's head. She barely had a moment to register the cops themselves before he was yanking her down into his lap.
Pain spiked in the back of her neck at being forced into such an awkward contortion and Jane grabbed his thigh in protest, her fingers digging in hard.
He jerked, glancing down. "Would you stop that? It fucking hurts and they're gonna think I'm hiding something!"
Despite her strain, Jane couldn't withhold how asinine he sounded. "Mike, we're sitting here in broad daylight and my head's in your lap—I think they're going to be more concerned with what you're not hiding."
"Don't be gross," he muttered.
She shot him a look out of the corner of her eye. "I'm not. I seem to recall many an adolescent evening spent in this exact position. It wasn't 'gross' for you back then." She angled her face toward the door compartment. "Although I can't say the same for me. Have you cleaned this car at all in the last four years?"
"Are you really trying to have this conversation with me now?" he hissed, trying to keep his lips as still as possible.
"About cleaning?" she murmured dumbly.
He glared down at her.
She sighed. "I'm not trying anything. I just don't think you need to be acting like the idea of you and me repulses you like a viral wart infection."
"You are a viral wart infection!" he cried out at her, briefly forgetting to keep his voice down. "You leak pus and disaster everywhere! You practically spew it!"
Really not enjoying his adoption of her simile for his successive—and rudely excessive—metaphor, Jane braced her neck and rotated her head to glower at him. "I never asked Dustin to come and get me!"
"But that's what you do, El—you get inside people and you make sure they can never let you go. You make them waste their own lives so they can focus on you!"
"I didn't make Dustin do anything!" she argued back. "Or is this not really about Dustin? Is this about you?"
Mike shook his head stubbornly, shifting in his seat and knocking her in the face. He didn't apologise.
"I told you already, I owe you nothing. We're just chasing down a lead and getting back to the party."
"I'm not saying you owe me anything, Mike!" Trying to find a comfortable position, Jane crossed her arms on top of his leg and rested her chin on them. She sighed. "I just… I lost you too, you know? I know, it was my fault, but that didn't mean it didn't kill me inside! You're acting like I wanted this—like I wanted to hurt you—and I'm just here trying to find a moment in time when none of this had happened yet and we were happy! Is it really so bad to remember? Do you really resent me that much that all those years we were together are just…what? Locked away in a box in your mind forever now?"
He nodded along with her words as she said them, but not in a way that indicated he was agreeing with her.
His voice was toxic as he responded slowly, eyes blazing black as he stared out the windshield in front of him, "Noise, El. Right now, you're just noise."
Jane's eyes went misty as he threw her own words back at her. Even though she'd replayed the memory over and over again in her mind since then, she'd never truly felt them until now. The shoe was on the other foot now, and imagination was nothing against the real thing.
Feeling forlorn and deflated, she relaxed her chin through her twiggy arms into his thigh unthinkingly and he jerked suddenly, his hand lurching up to grab the overhead safety handle as he cried out, "Fuck, El!"
It was amazing how much the surface circumstances of this experience held parallels to much more favourable times.
Jane eased an inch off his lap and tried to distract herself with the matter at hand—a fairly important matter, if her pathetic sodding heart could so recall.
"Is the squad car gone?"
Mike sounded less annoyed when he answered her, like he was too relieved to be properly pissed at the moment. "Yeah, they just pulled back onto the high street."
Jane sat up. "So, Plan B? Or are we going to hide out amongst the braziers?"
He shook his head, shifting into reverse.
"You can't stay in town," he answered. "Not if you care about Steve and Dustin, at least."
Ignoring that jab, Jane fixed him with an inflexible stare. "Mike, I'm not hiding in your mom's basement again."
"Like I'd take you there," he scoffed. "No. This place is outside the city blocks. Not out of town exactly, but far enough that you won't have too many neighbours."
"None except the serial killers and ejected drunks."
She grimaced at the idea of the kind of folk who lived out where town met farm. She knew the vague area Mike was taking her—it was basically a roadside motel for people who weren't actually just passing through, unless it was for a quick hustle with a working girl or rent boy. It was the reject house.
Even more unfortunate was the fact that the guy who had built it and whose family still held the deed today had named it after himself, Edgar Scarvy. Jane couldn't remember when the vandalism on the front sign had started—probably as far back as when Steve was still in school—but it had reached a point where they stopped bothering to clean the paint off. So, it had become 'Scurvy House,' and remained so to this day.
Mike pulled up in the parking lot and Jane stared up at the peeling dark green balcony railings and the gaping pale yellow monstrosity behind.
It was still only mid-afternoon, but the building was facing away from the sun, with very few windows to let the light in. The idea of hiding out alone here honestly sounded less appealing than taking her chances with the police in town.
Jane swallowed. "Maybe I could just camp in the woods? Or the junkyard? The bus has a decent amount of floorspace—"
Mike got out of the car and slammed his door.
Jane heard him rifling around in the trunk for something and, upon finding it, he slammed it closed as an indication that it was high time she get off her ass. She sighed and complied.
Reception was a hole in the wall beside the south stair, and Jane started toward it before Mike caught her wrist and pulled her along in the opposite direction.
"You already have a room?" she demanded, jogging every few steps to keep up with his long strides. "How does that work? You like the fixtures, do you? Or maybe the neighbourhood has good schools?"
"Would you please shut up for five seconds?" he implored, finding his key to the door as they climbed the north stair and muttering over his shoulder, "It was Bauman's. Remember, the private eye conspiracy theorist Nancy and Jonathan told us about? He took out a lease on this place as a cheap safe house the last time he turned up convinced someone was trying to silence him again. Now that he's back in Sesser, Nancy sends him rent checks so she can sublet on the down-low."
"Nancy lives here?!" Jane practically hurt herself trying to picture it. She couldn't—it was just too ludicrous. "God, why? This place is a dump!"
The key was clearly catching in the lock and she watched Mike jiggle it furiously for a few more seconds before she pushed him out of the way and let her focus home in on the lock, half-blocking Mike out as he responded, "She doesn't live here—she lives in Indianapolis with Jonathan. She uses this as storage space mostly since she knows Mom will go through everything she leaves at home, but she and Jonathan used to stay here whenever they wanted to get away. I guess they still do, whenever they come back here to visit. It's handy because her name isn't connected to it, so no one will find you here." He shrugged. "It's cheaper than a storage locker."
The lock groaned and clicked over, the key ejecting itself into Jane's waiting hand. She opened the door. "Yet equally hazardous to human dwelling."
Mike rolled his eyes and pushed past her, pointing out rooms in a rapid-fire tour. "Bedroom, bathroom, kitchenette. If you need towels, they're in shelves behind the shower curtain and there should be cereal in the kitchen cupboard."
Jane realised he intended to leave her alone. She'd expected it eventually, later in the evening, but not right this minute. "Wait, you're going?"
His expression made it seem like that had to have been obvious. "If I don't touch base on a Sunday, my family's going to know something's up."
"Well, why didn't you just take me to your place?" Jane asked, instantly ashamed of how much the question sounded like a whine.
He shook his head. "In town. Besides, I have roommates." At her dejected expression, he conceded reluctantly, "I'll come back tonight to check on you. I'll pick up some clothes and stuff from Dustin's on my way back so you're not just festering here in all…" He gestured to today's—and, incidentally, yesterday's—outfit. "That."
God, Jane really needed to get on top of her hygiene routine if that was the best the boy who'd loved her for years could do.
She followed him to the door and he turned on the welcome—actually, the 'Not Welcome'—mat.
"Don't let anyone in or go outside," he ordered seriously. "Don't talk to anyone or try to call anyone or… Just, none of it—don't do any of it. Just wait for me."
Jane did wait. She waited and waited and waited, and then she waited some more. She showered and found an old dress she couldn't remember Nancy ever wearing. It was a Spanish style; black with vibrant floral embroidery and a sweeping skirt with a slit high up the thigh where the fabric crossed over itself. Nancy had always been very slight—much slighter than Jane in her healthy form—but with the way she was now, the ruched cap sleeves fell off-the-shoulder and Jane's protruding clavicle was the true star of the ensemble. She tried pulling her hair forward over both shoulders, but short of knotting it into a beard under her chin, she was going to need a jacket to cover up the bony reminders of that nightmarish place.
Alas, there were no jackets about, but she found a thick crocheted throw, and pulled it around her shoulders as the hours dragged by and the damp cold set in for the evening.
The yellow lights overhead the walkway outside blinked on as it grew dark, their glow filtering in through the tiny crack in the drawn curtains beside the door—the only window in the whole apartment. Jane watched the shaft of light glint off the god-awful peachy tiles that made up the entryway. The rest of the apartment was carpet—ugly, ultra-thin 'you could cut yourself on it' navy carpet—but oh, no, not the entryway. Wouldn't want to cover up those terracotta-adjacent tiles—now they were a drawing point.
Jane was practically falling asleep when she could no longer convince herself that the eyesore was even the tiniest bit important. She really shouldn't have been resisting it; she'd been eating well for the first time in years over the last couple of days, but the same couldn't be said of her sleeping habits. It was just too hard—aside from the fear of more forgotten memories with her conscious defences down, she also suffered from knowing that somebody could be plotting, someone could be starving, someone could be dying, while she fell asleep.
Logically, she knew she would be of no help to anyone without sleep.
But then, there was also Mike. He'd said he'd come back. She wanted to wait.
So, she waited. And waited.
And finally there was a knock at the door.
Jane leapt from the couch and practically flung herself at the peephole, checking to make sure it was him.
He raised an eyebrow back at the peephole, and she swung the door open.
He took a half-step through, so he was still standing half in the cold, and appraised her outfit.
She pulled the throw tighter around herself subconsciously. "You're back."
"I told you I'd come back," he murmured, but he didn't sound angry anymore. More…impassive again. Even more so, unreadable. He held up brown grocery bags in one hand and Dustin's laundry bag in the other. "I come bearing gifts."
"Just so long as you come," she replied without thinking.
The unreadableness made it impossible to gauge his acceptance of that, and he looked at her for a second—really looked at her—and a tiny crease appeared between his eyebrows as he seemed to debate responding or not.
He chose not, clearing his throat and telling her, "Dustin says he's put a couple more things in here to keep you occupied. Case files, weekend crossword—you get the idea. He and Steve are going to visit tomorrow night if they finish early enough. Otherwise, Tuesday."
He handed her the laundry bag and Jane's eyes followed his hands as he gestured with the remaining shopping bags. "Dry storage; fridge. It's only basic. You've only got enough for a couple of simple meals in there but the pasta should fill you up well enough until the rest of us can think up a more permanent plan. There shouldn't be an issue—there's just pasta, milk, potatoes and carrot, some greens, a couple apples…"
Jane was nodding along so automatically that she didn't actually notice exactly when he stopped speaking. When it finally registered in her mind—so random and inexplicable, just cutting off mid-list—she forgot the grocery bags and looked up into his face.
He had stopped, mid-list. Mid-everything, apparently, because now he was just studying her. His eyes ghosted over her lips, her neck, her exposed shoulders, and the upside-down triangle of soft skin running down between her breasts—only exposed by her lack of curves to hold the buttoned fabric together.
His mouth twitched, almost imperceptibly, and he returned his focus to her eyes. His were black as ink, and the depth of the unknown in them scared her.
He took another half-step inside, this time directly toward her. Jane flinched back, matching his advance with her own retreat.
Why was she suddenly so nervous? This was Mike. Her Mike.
But also, not her Mike.
This was the Mike who'd spent all day ignoring her, snapping at her—the Mike who had a right to be resentful and hurt, but not inscrutable like this. She'd spent too much of her life unaware of people's intentions.
What did he want?
Jane could deal with anything, so long as she knew what he might want.
He took another step, but this time when Jane lifted her foot to step away again, she set it back in its place.
He was standing over her, so close she could feel him without actually needing to touch. He was so warm… He was so warm, she shivered.
His eyes sharpened, detecting the goosebumps running down her arms, the hardening of her nipples in the thin dress, and the tiny hitch in her breath as she failed to breathe normally.
For a moment, they just stood there, almost against each other, and, out of nervous habit, Jane licked her lips. As subtle as it was, the movement drew him, and he watched her lower lip graze slowly between her teeth, now slightly glossy with saliva. His eyes darkened, his jaw working. His striking cheekbones seemed to strain against his pale skin as his cheeks bowed inward as his own lips parted. He lifted his gaze back to her eyes.
Jane's heart beat once, twice, three times, the tension in the entryway so thick that she could almost hear it.
She could certainly feel it; it was pressing down on her like the weight of a thousand almosts, what ifs and maybes.
And then his body slammed into her, his fingers knotting immediately in the roots of her hair. His mouth caught hers, and Jane could feel teeth, but it was what she realised she wanted. So long without him, even longer without all of him, and she didn't care what hurt; she didn't care if he ate her alive at this point—she just wanted to feel him.
He threw the door closed and sunk back against it, hands dragging down her back and yanking one of her thighs up around him. The slit of her dress fell open to the stitching and he fisted it up higher as his hands found her ass.
One of his legs was between hers and he jolted her hips forward. She gasped at the sudden friction as cunt met thigh.
He growled into her mouth at the noise and ripped her first layer from her shoulders, throwing it down and kicking it away as he pushed her by the waist down onto the floor.
Jane yelped as her exposed ass and thighs hit tiles—there may have been a dress in the bottom of Nancy's closet, but Jane hadn't been about to root around in boxes for the possibility of her ex-boyfriend's sister's spare underwear—and she tried to wriggle backward so at least half of her was on carpet. But she only got her shoulders over the entryway lip when Mike came down on top of her, forcing her legs open at the knees and dragging her back against him.
Jane held his eyes as she heard the jingle of his belt and he unzipped his trousers, and she clung to his hips as she felt him rub himself along her slit. He hissed at the sensation, his body covering hers completely as he sunk down on one elbow. His eyes flashed with dark satisfaction at the picture of her lying there beneath him, curled around him like it was her natural place, waiting and trembling.
She knew she wasn't ready—physically, she wasn't ready. He had to remember that these things took time. But that didn't stop him, and she didn't try to.
She jerked up against him as he pushed inside her, her teeth grazing his throat. It didn't really matter that it was slow—in a way, it made it worse. She bit her lip closed and a let out a strangled whimper into his ear, her fingers digging into his skin as he buried himself all the way inside.
Her back arched back against the floor, and she felt his stomach drag against hers as he stroked slowly, in and out.
She felt lips against her neck, warmth and wetness along her jaw. It burned cool like mint as his breath washed over it.
His speed picked up, and Jane realised quickly that he wasn't planning to last.
One hand gripped her hip to bruise, holding her steady as he thrust faster and faster—it was her anchor as she jerked back and forth across the smooth tiles, locking her in place as he pounded hard enough that Jane wondered if this sudden onslaught was intended to punish.
He seemed to answer that for her as her ripped one of her sleeves down and bit the suddenly exposed flesh, quickly running his tongue over the mark and then sucking her nipple into his mouth.
Jane's head fell back against the carpet, her lips parting as she moaned in sudden bliss. Her face screwed up and she moaned again as he laboured over the delicate bud, always so responsive to his mouth. His teeth grazed over it and up again, and he nipped the skin along her collarbone, making his mark there, too.
Jane tried rolling her hips to match his rhythm and slid her fingers into his hair, but a sudden ferocity flared in his eyes and he smacked her arms down above her head. He kissed her viciously, and Jane could feel the anger barely contained inside him as he made her submit—made her submit to his cock, teeth, and tongue. He thrust deeper, more deliberately, as he slowed his kisses, and Jane realised he wanted her to recognise it for what it was: the crest of a wave, before it broke.
Jane stared up at him as he pulled away from her, holding her eyes as his hands returned to the almost non-existent swell of her ass and he suddenly kneeled up, hoisting her over his thighs to so he could pull her right up to the hilt; make her feel the full shape of him again, the size… All of him. Everything. She let her eyes close and her head loll back as she tried to focus on their breathing; his was quiet and interwoven with uninhibited, almost animal groans, while hers was breathy and broke into increasingly loud whimpers as he drove himself harder inside her.
"Look at me," he panted, his voice quiet but no less commanding. "El, look at me!" he repeated, the order becoming a growl.
But she couldn't obey. His cock drowned everything else out. All she could hear was the damp slapping of skin against skin and all she could feel was his hips ramming against the backs of her thighs as he drove into her, again and again. The tendons at the apex of her thighs felt as if they were tearing as his forearms stretched her out, wider and wider, and she knew that in this moment, he could see everything.
She'd never realised until she'd had sex that there was naked and there was naked.
She felt high at the thought of it; inflamed. How long it had been since she'd wanted to just be fucked into primal, sweaty oblivion—because with Mike it could be that and the unerring promise that it was for life.
She was whimpering steadily now, eyes squeezing shut and her mouth falling open as she held her breath for moments at a time and gasped and whined his name.
"Mike! Fuck, Mike! Mike!"
She reached up, clamping a hand down over his, which held her so far up her thigh that her fingers fluttered against her aching entrance and his hard shaft as he rode out his demons into her now hot, wet cunt.
At her touch, his rhythm faltered, his movements becoming less controlled and Jane could tell he was getting close.
But he kept claiming her—claiming her and claiming her like he was trying to fuck back all he'd lost.
Maybe he wasn't the only one to know the feel of her anymore—but he didn't realise how he'd always be the one and only in other ways. He was the only one to watch her bounce uncontrollably on top of him while crying out his name; he was the only one who'd seen her face flush pink and sweat stick her hair to the back of her neck and her forehead as he made her gasp and scream and clutch at whatever part of him she could reach as he brought her to ecstasy with just his fingers and his lips and tongue. He was the only one who knew her body like a finely-tuned instrument, the only one who knew where to touch and how to touch her—how to play her to sweet release. Even if this wasn't about that tonight—even if it wasn't about reciprocity or love—it was about reclaiming at least a part of her that had been his. And it was there in his eyes when Jane finally opened hers. About love or not, his were finally unguarded, and he was angry and he was in pain.
His cock had its root in his soul, after all.
Her fingers tightened around his and he was panting, staring straight into her as his hair fell into his face from exertion, bouncing off his forehead in damp, thick spikes.
Jane felt like her whole body was on fire under his gaze. She couldn't form a coherent thought besides just wanting him to keep going—right up until the end—whether she felt raw already or not. Her muscles clamped down around him and he grunted like he might lose it.
"Do it," she whispered.
God, she wanted him to—his face was a whole other world of perfect when he let go. Forever guarded, cautious Mike, even before she'd hurt him—he'd never wanted to seem too vulnerable to look after her. But when she made him come apart inside her, she could see into his deepest corners like his entire soul opened up. And she loved everything she saw.
"Do it," she repeated, gasping, glancing down between them to where they were joined, smacking into each other like waves against a reef. "I want you-I want you to. Mike…" She was coming apart in her own way. Not orgasming—not tonight—but she felt as if a few more thrusts and she'd unravel like a heart made of string. She bit her lip and tears pricked her eyes. "Mike, I'm looking. Mike, I see you."
His expression clouded right as he started to shudder and lose all control, jerking deep inside of her and crushing her ass up against his pelvis as a feral noise ripped from his throat.
He leaned over her, bearing down on her, his eyes scrunching closed and he exploded inside of her, the last few smacks he rained down feeling less like waves crashing and more like a building roaring down over her.
He collapsed his full weight on her, his warm breath making her hair shiver against the side of her face as he caught his breath in her ear. His fingers traced up the side of her stomach, over her ribs and the peak of her breast, along her collarbone… They came to rest around her throat.
For another minute, they seemed suspended in time, just lying there in a sweaty, half-naked heap, his thumb stroking down the line of her carotid.
Jane licked her lips and turned her face a fraction, wanting to see him. But it was a mistake.
The moment they locked eyes, hers still half-lidded with lust, what they'd just done seemed to dawn on him.
A glint of panic and the window in his eyes closed up, and suddenly he was pulling himself out of her unceremoniously and pushing himself to his feet as Jane wilted from the loss of him. He jerked his trousers up and buckled his belt, dragging his fingers through his hair to smooth out what had fallen out of place.
And then he was gone, the door slamming. He didn't even look at her.
Jane lay there in complete shock.
She knew she should get up. She should have been picking up her scattered groceries or showering again or something. But she couldn't move.
She just lay there; chest still heaving, skirt still pushed up around her waist, front buttons ripped open. Her nipple still stung from when he'd bitten her.
Her legs sagged open, exposing her aching centre to the cool night air. She had forgotten to ask him about the heating dial.
She really hadn't been ready for him. She knew she was going to hurt tomorrow. God, she already hurt right now. But she didn't care.
As much as she had tried not to dwell on it, she'd been sick to her stomach for the past four years that Mike wasn't the last person she'd slept with.
Now, she could feel his seed leaking out of her and she realised how irresponsible they had been—she wasn't on any sort of birth control—but it had all happened so fast… She doubted either of them had thought about it.
It had just been so sudden.
Why, Mike? she wanted to ask. Why here, why now? Do you even know?
Eventually she crawled onto her knees and covered herself, not that there were any witnesses in the cramped space.
Hot water blasted down her back in the shower, and she let the spray take over her senses, submerging her head completely.
She could still feel him; moving, thrusting, biting—his tongue laving over her skin and sweeping her mouth as his hands crushed her legs and hips around his throbbing cock.
It hadn't been the right time; it had been too early and he was still too angry, too bitter. So she sat there in the tub under the boiling spray, wondering until her fingers and toes were pruned and her back was raw; what were you thinking, Mike? What turned groceries to fucking? What made you want me like this?
Was it even me you wanted?