CW for dubcon/semi-noncon(?) - not malicious, but a social stunting/ignorance thing; it's ultimately consensual, but starts out with that language and vibe.
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And now that I'm grown, I'm scared of ghosts
Memories feel like weapons
And now that I know, I wish you'd left me wondering
If clarity's in death, then why won't this die?
I keep on waiting for a sign
I regret you all the time
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I've just turned my lights off when a knock comes at my door. I put them back on and go over, expecting Scar or Quartz, but what I get is Jinx, holding an armful of bedclothes and peeking shyly over the top.
"Uh... do you need something?" I ask.
Her voice is muffled by her pillow. "Want to have a sleepover?"
It's past midnight, and it's been a crazy couple of days, and I'm thrown off by the fact that she knocked instead of breaking in, so I just assume I didn't hear her right. "What?"
She gets even quieter. "Do you want to have a sleepover?"
I step out of the doorway automatically, like I'm still the president and inviting one of my people in to talk, and she squeezes past me. Rather than kicking her out like I should, all I manage to do is ask, "Why?"
Her bedding plops down on the floor troublingly close to my cot. She's wearing an oversized gray nightshirt with a monkey drawn on the front and striped socks without shoes, so she can't be screwing with me— coming here was the only reason she left her room.
"I just thought," she says, kneeling to straighten her blankets, "maybe if we did it one more time like we did when we were little, it would give us closure."
I watch the back of her head in disbelief. That's the easiest "no" of my life.
Not that I actually say it.
"How would that give us closure?" I ask.
"Because until we give it a shot, we'll always wonder what it would be like. If it could be the same."
"We already know it can't be the same."
Her shoulders slump minutely. "Then let's prove it," she says, standing. "Beyond a shadow of a doubt."
I try again to reject her.
She looks at me with those round eyes.
I close the door.
She sits at my desk with paper and the box of crayons I bought for her on a whim with my UBI. I don't know where she pulled them from. She has a blue flower outlined by the time I've taken the four steps over.
"I'm tired, and there's a meeting tomorrow at nine," I say. "We're not drawing."
"Just one picture, grumpy-pants." She slides over a sheet of paper and a green crayon. Fighting would draw this out longer, so I get to work on a cube.
We drew together sometimes as kids. I'm not an artist like her and Vi, but I've always had a knack for visualizing geometry and movement in a three-dimensional plane, so I did most of our blueprints when we invented, and once in a while I sketched perspective lines or backgrounds for her to draw over. We liked when we used up a lot of paper in a session and made it look like we'd been real productive. Sometimes we filled space with smart-looking nonsense just to push the image in case anyone walked in.
"That looks good," Jinx says, and reaches over to draw a smiley face in blue on my finished cube. I bite down on what I almost feel.
"Thanks."
"Thanks for the crayons."
"Don't mention it."
She adds a matching smiley face to her flower and lines our papers up on the desk. "Do you still fix clocks?" she asks.
"I haven't for a while. Doesn't feel the same if it's not in Benzo's shop."
I don't know why I shared that. We're not having a conversation. She's not dragging me back that way. Last time she did, I told her about the Z-Drive and she stole it.
"I'm going to sleep," I say. "I don't want you poking around in here, so...."
She goes to her spot on the floor without complaint. I turn the lanterns off, leaving only the light of the moon from the window, which does nothing to help me pretend she's not there. I have to get onto my cot from the end so I don't step over her.
As deep in my pillow as I can get, I slow my breathing and think peaceful thoughts and curse myself for answering that knock in the first place. I don't know how long I keep up the act, but it feels like an hour, and I stay wide awake.
Her presence is palpable in a way I can't describe except as some sort of tasteless poison in the air. It's not like I think she's gonna jump me or anything like that, but I know she's here, in my room, and she's Jinx, and it's just a stiff bastardization of what we did as kids— a joke we're both in on, even though I didn't ask to be. It's ridiculous that she thinks there's any point.
I ease up on my hands enough to peer over the edge of the cot at her. She's curled up and still and small, her bunny tucked beneath her chin. Harmless.
I roll over and sit bolt upright and say louder than necessary: "I can't do this anymore."
Jinx's eyes open, purple light cast on her pillow. "Hm?"
"It was a bad idea. You should leave."
"Why?" She props herself up.
"We did your experiment. We proved sleepovers aren't the same. I don't see any need to drag it out if we both get that."
She cocks her head to the side, weight on one elbow, and makes searing eye contact with me like she's assessing her prey. I don't appreciate it and I'm about to let her know when she says, "Okay. We don't have to do the old stuff anymore."
She springs to her feet. I reach under my mattress. One blink later, she's on my lap, teeth flashing, worlds removed from the sleeping girl of a moment ago now that the bunny has been replaced by a blade.
"How about we try something new?" she says, pinching my jackknife between two fingers. I hold it steady. So does she.
I remember her perched on my chair with a vial of glitter before the ball. Mask off in front of me in the twilit music room. Spine curving under my hand as her feet crossed gold-flecked marble. All that fervor paling when she twirled into a familiar chase.
"No bad memories," she says. "Right?"
Silco is my family, and you are no one.
You are no one.
You are no one.
"Get off."
She sticks out her lower lip. "Aw, c'mon, grumpy-pants."
I thrust the knife back under the mattress, because I'm pretty sure I'll get violent if she says one more thing. Our pinkies bump before she lets go. Goosebumps race up my arm.