Death and Family

[KhaoticBliss]

05.01.2016

Crispin was dead. Dead? Even just trying to shape the word in her head seemed to make her brain slip a gear, her mind going curiously, frightfully blank. There had been at least five people of varying intensity immediately around her, one even holding her close and stroking her hair and telling her everything would be okay, but Saila couldn't understand them, couldn't focus, couldn't process, couldn't deal.

Overwhelmed with a sudden and urgent need to be away, Saila couldn't remember how she'd gotten out the door, when she'd broken into a run, where she'd left Jackie. Girl would owe her friend an apology for sure. Saila did what she always did in these situations, she ran. Both mentally and in this case physically, she'd broken into a preternaturally fast sprint the moment the night air touched her skin. She'd run and was still running, making for the tree line and deep into the woods, trailing braided purple pigtails behind her, a luminescent streak in the night.

It wouldn't be long before she was no longer running alone. He didn't speak, it was no accident that Saila ran when things were too much, he did the same and she was an imprint of him wasn't she? Quinn was silent and in full watch attire. Including the 45 that hung snug in its holster on his right hip.

It wasn't hard for him to keep up with her, not anymore, not since they had run together so many times, but running in boots was proving a little interesting for sure. They could run until his lungs burned and his veins pumped what felt like battery acid for all he cared, that was the kind of run you went on when you were in this sort of pain.

Quinn. Maybe the first detail Saila's fragmented brain actually processed, the teenager became aware of the white wolf, and something inside her chest eased. Her breath coming just a little bit more comfortably now, the girl swallowed, her stride slowing fractionally.

After what felt like hours but was probably only one, Saila stopped abruptly. When she stopped, she turned, winding both arms around Quinn beside her. She hadn't even looked when she reached - just knew he was there.

She was met immediately by his own arms, and he wrapped her up and held her close. There was no way to explain death until it was right there in front of you. He could have stammered on about how things would get easier, get better, but she would know he was full of ****. Things changed, things became different, but it would always hurt. She would be sitting alone in her car five years from now, and a song would come on and it would hit her in the chest like she was experiencing it all over again first hand. Instead of empty words and promises of normality he simply said: "He was a good guy. Could be kind of a ****, but over all a good guy."

Burying her face against his chest, Saila breathed in the scent of him, squeezing her eyes closed. It was good that he hadn't tried to articulate it -- for one thing, she could hear him loud and clear anyway, and for another, she'd have felt like an ***hole if he who had lost just about everyone seriously tried to verbalize comfort for her over.. a guy she knew but couldn't have necessarily called a friend.

It was just the newness of it, the rawness of the experience. The wall of grief that had come rolling off Nica, the immovable denial in Cane. The way nobody seemed to know precisely what happened, the conflicting reports on what death even meant. It was all too much and she'd experienced a temporary meltdown.

Pressing herself closer, the teen nodded, her fingers curling into his back. "Thank you," her voice was a rough whisper, and it was as much about him being here than anything in particular he'd thought or said.

One of those massive hands was lifted, and his fingers found their way onto the back of her head, brushing carefully up and down the part there for her pigtails, a very fatherly gesture. Holding her close and nodding. "A lot of people try to tell others they have to be strong when grieving, I've learned that those people are ****ing idiots and you should handle things the way you handle them. If you think you're handling things badly, you're not. You've got it right." And very clearly he spoke the last of it. "And don't for one second believe that yours is any less valid than anyone else's, no matter who Cris was to you."

"I just... I can't process it. Death -- I know death. I've seen it a million times in a million memories. But when I try to apply it to a face I actually know, someone I've talked to and touched and drank a million bottles of rum with I just...my brain won't do it. It's like... like...." Her hands worked reflexively as she searched for the words, something to explain it. "Like magnets repelling."

Pulling a little ways away from him, then, Saila lifted those glittery bright peculiar eyes. It was the big things she couldn't verbalize that hung there like ghosts behind them. What if it was Mark, or Keirra, or Jackie or Cane or Salvador or... The girl couldn't even make herself think the one that really had her thrown. What if it was..you.

"Someday, it will be Mark, and Keirra, and Jackie, maybe Cane, Sal is a toss up, but I promise you this, of all the people who will go, I'll never be gone." This was a hard one, he'd been through it before, but on a much different scale. Maria had come running into his study holding her hampster between two hands and crying because he wouldn't wake up. It was then that he had first had to explain death. Explain that he would die, and Mommy would die and even she some day a loooooong time away would also die. Quinn wasn't the kind of person who sugar coated things, but when it came to children some things had to be carefully put. Saila wasn't a child, but he meant every word. "Every single thing that makes me...me, is inside of you. You have every memory, every conversation, every single thing I've ever done. As long as I'm in there, I'd say I'm immortal."

There was a ripple of some unnamed emotion in her eyes, a shimmer that seemed to wash over every part of her. On the verge of tearing up -- and there was nothing Saila hated more than crying-- she pressed her face into his chest again, hugging him all the more tightly with a strangled sound that was probably a choked sob.

Oh ****, this was crying, this is where Dads were MADE into legends, or into total ***holes for not knowing what to do. Quinn was somewhere in the middle, he simply picked her up and carried her a few paces to sit on a fallen tree, a very upset very sullen daughter in his lap. If he knew that she was crying, he made no mention of it. But it would be a lie to say his eyes didn't well up with sorrow for her. This wasn't easy, it wasn't fun, and it wasn't something someone should have to experience this way.

Lifted into his arms, Saila curled into him, giving herself permission to let go, to quit being so god**** impervious, to rely on his strength for a time. It wasn't all the way crying, not completely, but it did take her several long minutes to compose herself. When she did, finally, the teen lifted herself away from him, still sitting in his lap but at least she was actually sitting up now. Rubbing roughly at her face with the heel of her hand, the muse let out a frustrated sigh. "...We're not on camp, right? We can get really stoned?"

He didn't care, and he knew damn well Mark would understand given the circumstances. They were not on camp though, so he unclipped the top of a magazine holster and reached in to pull out the baggie and blown glass pipe. Just weed, Quinn wasn't ****ing around with anything else at the moment and didn't think given the grief that any of that **** would help her either. The last thing she needed was downers. Speed would make **** worse and the harder drugs, well, he'd beat her *** and then they'd be in a whole new predicament. He allowed the sleeve to his jacket to cover his hand and lifted it to wipe away the eyeliner and mascara that had run from the tears. "Your goth is falling off...We need some serious liner, stat."

Mark cared, and Saila cared about Mark getting mad at her. All she wanted was weed, but she knew how touchy the gypsy king could be, so it seemed like a good idea to ask. The girl nodded at the pipe --surely weed would fix it -- and then he was clearing away her smeared eye liner.

A hollow laugh sounded in her chest then, and she held one extended finger to her lips. "Shhhhh."

He would shhhhh and carefully picked up a penny. Opening an empty pill bottle, he dropped two of the nuggets in and a penny. Shaking vigorously for a few seconds he nodded. The contents were now broken and he started stuffing the little bits one after another into the glass piece. "He really doesn't care if the kids aren't around and if we are super careful with it. He knows I use it to keep mellow." He was terrible at shushing.

He was? But it was one of her favorite things about him. Smiling just a little, Saila shook her head. "Maybe with you. He's pretty solidly against it when it's Keirra or me." Watching him break up the pot, the girl's smirk lingered, wan but present. "You're special." She'd meant it earnestly -- the gypsy king made certain allowances for Quinn that he didn't for others -- but in retrospect it probably sounded like she was teasing him.

"Listen, calling me names won't get you anywhere missy." He said and handed her the bowl and the lighter. "I think he's different with me because I am very discreet about things. Keirra kinda just flops it out onto the lawn. I like that about her, but he's trying to keep a clean camp. I guess I get it.

Saila stuck her tongue out at him. "I wasn't calling you na--oh, yay." Taking the bowl and the lighter, she fit her thumb over the little side opening thing, a carb, she learned, as she held it. Sparking the lighter and then moving it in a slow circle over the pot while she inhaled steadily. There was a practiced precision to what she was doing, like she'd done it thousands (probably more like hundreds) of times before.

Holding spicy smoke in her lungs, Saila conceded this with a shrug, passing the pipe back. Not that it was a far pass considering she was still sitting on him. Her smile was a lazy one. "I mean. I know that's true? But I have so much trouble thinking of you as 'discreet'."

"I was in the closet for years, I am the King of discreet." The bowl brought to lips and re-lit. Thumb over the carb and suuuuuuck before letting it go and clearing the small chamber. The hit was held and he thought a moment. Speaking as smoke spilled from his lips. "I don't know if I could ever be like that again, once you're out you're sort of...Super out I think."

Saila pondered that, taking the pipe from him after a long moment. "I mean. I know that?" The girl tapped her temple, but then she shook her head. "But I still have trouble seeing you that way." Smirking, the bowl was still lit, so she hit it again without stopping to use the lighter. Lifting her thumb to pull smoke deep into her lungs. "What made you finally come out?" She knew the when and the how, but not the why.

Chewing on the side of his thumb for a moment, his mind would be screaming it. The smaller half of the rabies babies, the one he couldn't stand anymore, and before he got all pissy broody he may as well come out with it. "I wanted my kids to know Dirk." The memory was a painful one, but a fond one nonetheless. "They called him Daddy Dirk. They were totally fine with it, and so I didn't really care about anyone else after that."

Saila just nodded. Laying her free hand over one of his, she squeezed it gently without lacing the fingers. Just a moment of support. "...That's pretty awesome, actually." As much as she knew it hurt to think about. And just like that, they were back to death. Frowning, she took another strong hit and then passed the pipe back. "****in' rabies babies." A dim smile.

"Do you know they got arrested...for breaking into a dildo shop and then a kid's arcade? They filled the prize counter with **** and *****...****ing cost 200 grand to bail them out. And I am pretty sure that if Levi can't get them off..." He paused as THAT image flashed through his mind, OH jesus that made him angry, he pushed it out. "If he can't get them acquitted, they will be registered sex offenders."

Saila blinked. She hadn't known that -- had been a hair preoccupied -- but now that Quinn was talking about it the images scrolled across her mind like a blinking marquee. "Oh my... oh my god," she said with a snicker, slapping one hand over her mouth. "What the.. " brows furrowed. "What the hell was Amare wearing?!"

"A ****ing sweater he hand colored! I mean...REALLY?! OH OH OH! And Dirk had a **** contraption is his pocket and he made the cop SEARCH HIS POCKETS!" He roared and then started laughing. "I don't even know what to do about him, he's...**** man the two of them will have me broke, but at least I'll still be laughing."

Maybe she was just stoned, maybe it was just hilarious, but Saila pretty much couldn't talk - or breathe- for laughing her *** off. To the point that she **** near fell off his lap.

Quickly, he grabbed her so she didn't fall. But he was glad she was laughing, and so when he set her back upright he kept talking. "Oh and there was a blowup doll the cops almost missed named Bertha...Helga...Olga, I can't remember but they hung it up with the stuffed prizes. They have court in a couple days and I swear if I lose my 200 grand I am going to kill them after I make them write down EVERY detail of their fiasco."

Mismatched eyes saucer wide, Saila filtered this image through her mind's eye, and, well. She started giggling again. "I just... oh my god. That is amazing. Tell me they get to keep the doll?" There were tears in her eyes again, but this time because she was having trouble breathing. Her sides hurt from laughing so hard.

And this is why Saila gets stoned. Because sometimes with the weight of the world in her head, it's really really hard to laugh. "What did they say when you went to get them? Did they have a reason?"

"A reason?! They don't have a reason for anything, they were just like OKAY time to take me home. A reason. Ha! Here's the reason, they are bored and from money. This is what happens when you are bored and have too much money. You saw my pool house, you don't have things to do after a while." He laughed and looked at the bowl in his hand. Oh yeah weed. Another hit taken and he handed it back over to her.

"I dunno, man. Amare's reasons seem to have reasons sometimes." All that business about trophies and high school that she hadn't entirely followed. It seemed important to him at the time!

Taking the pipe, Saila reclaimed the lighter, getting it lit again before her next inhale. "Ours.. is one ****ed up family," she pronounced, with all the wisdom of a reeeeeally high teenager. At least she wasn't wrong?

"Oh you wanna hear ****ed up? Levi wants to bring them to camp to show them what family is like. I am already terrified that they are going to eat someone I care about and he wants to put them smack dab in the middle of Everyone I care about." He laughed to himself and nodded to her. She was a wise one for sure, and she had him thinking about the deeper reasons they would put sex toys in the not-Chuck-E-Cheeze.

"I...what? That's an absolutely terrible idea. Tell me Mark didn't say yes?" Mismatched eyes widened. Wolves at the camp? It wasn't a bias or prejudice on her part. Saila knew those particular wolves pretty well.

"I don't know what Mark said yet, I haven't spoken to him about it. I understand that Levi wants the change, that makes complete sense, and he's going to talk to Mark about it, so there's that part of all this. But, those two, I don't know I feel like one wrong move and they are destroying everything."

"Well, no. Not with me here. Together we can handle them." Team White Wolf, back in action! But still. It just seemed like a bad plan all the way around. "Levi suggested this? Huh." Saila rubbed her jaw, exhaling, passing the pipe back.
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