Rise and Shine

There hadn’t been much wiggle room in her schedule – not enough to do more than head down the hall to Krista and Kitty’s dorm room at least. No evenings off from cramming statutes and precedents into a head that’d felt a dozen sizes too small to contain them at times. If there had been room for them, Phoebe doubted she’d have gone to the club. She could’ve found a distraction there, a ]treat for getting through another exam or submitting another paper (maybe of the tall, dark, recently resurrected sort), but there’d only have been Kit behind the bar, the space Lawrence usually occupied when she was there empty.

A sick little feeling had filled her stomach every time she’d considered it. They’d practically stamped their names in that spot at the bar, the one where he’d turned towards her that first time and a hundred years had melted away. It wouldn’t have been the same without that patch of floor next to her filled. Her parents hadn’t wanted her to even go into Lawrence’s room after he’d died. She’d felt sick then, the sort that turned a stomach that was far more delicate. More than once she’d ended up on her knees in the bathroom, tears staining her cheeks, her stomach emptying itself, as her heart had when they’d told her he was gone. Of course, she hadn’t listened to that order about staying out for more than five minutes, but each time in that place had cut at her heart. She’d have been an idiot to do it to herself again.

Lawrence had come back this time, which meant that she could sweep those pesky emotions under the rug again. Paste on a smile, snap at him a little and it was like he’d never been gone. The party would help with that. A focus outside school, outside family and how they could tear you apart, outside Teddy and the disapproval that was likely to radiate up through the floors while they celebrated and he brooded down here about how she’d crossed a line – figuratively and literally – when she’d moved into the building. Too bad for him. Close to a century of being separated was enough for her. Perhaps one day she’d be ready to stretch the cord, but today she just wanted to wrap it around Lawrence’s neck.

The mutters from within confirmed that Lawrence was there at least. She could have called back, but Phoebe bit her tongue on the not fast enough. No point in pissing the neighbours off early. She might have been the one more likely to vanish off into the woods to avoid things when they’d been kids, but she’d also been punctual for the things she wanted to do, less of a space cadet that her big brother.

It would’ve been too easy to comment on the clothes first, so Phoebe went for the face instead. Her tongue tapped her upper lip as he tried to turn it around on her. Phoebe glanced down at her bag, then up at her brother with a lemon sharp smile. ”Know some, do you?” she asked. It was a bit rich coming from him. Shrugging it off anyway, she adjusted the bag on her shoulder and shifted her weight. There were reasons enough for it, and it wasn’t like she was going to be staggering around the stores half out of her mind. It was like drinking water for humans – wet and vaguely satisfying, good for you in a roundabout way.

He should’ve been stepping out of the apartment, shutting the door behind him as she shook her head. No. No! ”No say, Where are you going? I told you we were meant to on our way already. There’s no time for …well, brunch maybe … but there’s no time.” He wasn’t listening though. What a surprise.

Suspicious enough that she was scowling as Lawrence settled on the armchair and gestured her down, Phoebe settled on the edge of the couch. Ready to bolt at any moment if he honestly started on about 12 step programmes and not leaving Teddy alone, as though he was entirely incapable of fighting his own battles (that skinny frame had already managed to do plenty of damage of the emotional sort at least). ”If there is about moving in, you can …” Keep it to yourself.

She almost told him to anyway the moment he said mom. The world slowed down for the rest of that sentence, leaving her enough time to consider clamping her hands over her ears so she wouldn’t have to hear it. She wished she hadn’t heard it. Sitting statue still, Phoebe stared at Lawrence with eyes that rapidly glazed over with tears before she blinked them away. ”Did dad have that put on her stone? She did it herself, just to make sure that nobody thought it was him?” she croaked, bitterness dripping from her words. Their parents had put on a united front after, but there’d always seemed to be cracks shot through their mom. She would have been the one to cave eventually, maybe, if she’d given her the chance to instead of staying gone.

Phoebe pressed her lips together, shaking her head. ”She wouldn’t … why would she have done it … we weren’t dead. She could have still had us.” And the coven likely would’ve turned against them. They were monsters, the same as the things that had invaded the valley, drawing coven blood, killing, turning. Maybe they wouldn’t have been wrong, but their mother wouldn’t have believed that, would she?

Tagged: LAWRENCE MURPHY * Word Count: 932

Please, Phoebe, what?

Her eyes were rolling, the words on the tip of her tongue, but there was no point to them. Lawrence wasn’t stubborn in the same way she was – like a stiletto heel, sharp and a bitch to work free once she was stuck free – he was more … dead weight. You had to drag him into things, or she did at least, once the momentum was up and you got him rolling, fine, but until then it was nudge, nudge, nudge to get the tiniest bit of movement out of him. How Teddy put up with it full time was beyond her. Lawrence wasn’t gonna move until she physically dragged him out of the house, not even the carrot and stick lure of the bottle in her bag.

Including him in every aspect of her life was probably a bit more than most would have done, but a century without the brother who she’d lost too early, had warped everything. Now, even if it galled Teddy every time he heard her name, she was dragging Lawrence in. Maybe one day they’d both grow tired of it and would find some distance, like she imagined they would have, not yet though. Phoebe hissed out a sigh, his face was already puckering as she tried to hurry him along – he’d definitely been living with Teddy for too long.

She glanced around the apartment for some sign of him as she walked in. All it needed now was for Teddy to walk in and any hope of shopping would go out the window. Lawrence would mention the bottle in her bag, Teddy would look at her like she’d been out murdering grandmothers instead of just starting the party early. Everything would get tense. It was a vicious circle she wanted to escape, but, of course, Lawrence was shoving her right back on it.

Phoebe felt her stomach plummet towards her feet. These days there was rarely anything other than blood or liquor in it, but she remembered the sick feeling as it would churn, the back of her throat burning as it seemed to flip-flop between plunging leadenly and rushing up towards her mouth when she was hearing something she didn’t want to. Like it had on the day her parents had told her Lawrence had died. Technically she’d died on the same day, two rebirths for the price of one death. They’d both seemed so cold about it (their dad even more so than their mom), as though it hadn’t torn them to pieces for their son to have been turned by things they found so monstrous – into one of those things. After she’d imagined that they’d found themselves someone in the coven to lavish their attention on, replacements for their own kids.

Had it been a comfort to think of some part of them carrying on? Phoebe’s hands tunnelled into her hair, gripping tight enough to feel it tug at her scalp as she stared at Lawrence. Maybe. No matter what had happened, she hadn’t hated them, not all the way. It didn’t mean she wasn’t bitter, but that was different to outright hatred. ”He would’ve reported that too. You know they wouldn’t have...” That sick feeling grew as she thought about what they did for unnatural deaths now, cutting people open, inspecting every organ as though they could get their life story from them. Pressing her lips together, she shook her head. Maybe guilt had exploded their dad’s heart in his chest, maybe he’d died in agony, karma prolonging the pain. More likely they’d both gone fast and painlessly – unlike Joshua.

Understanding people had made her a good sheriff, but she’d never understand how her parents had turned their backs on their children so thoroughly. She stared at Lawrence as he looked away, her head still ticking slowly back and forth like she could shake this idea free. ”Don’t think it was your fault. I had no choice in what I did, they put a woman’s blood in my mouth and waited for me to lose my mind. You had no choice either. If your killing someone was all that made them kick you out then they wouldn’t have forced me out either.” The imbalance between their parents pulled at her conscience. It shouldn’t have done, not now, but if losing one child had hardened their mom, then losing two had broken her. If she hadn’t opened the door that day.

Seeing the tears rolling down Lawrence’s face loosened her control over her own. They welled in her eyes, but she blinked them back hard. ”You don’t think that would just make it worse?” she asked, wincing at the chill in her own voice. Another tender part of her life that she’d have to open up to Teddy about. She drew in a breath, then inched closer to Lawrence, reaching out to grip his arm. ”Do you want to? Are you ready for you might hear?” Lawrence had turned off his emotions before, would finding out that their mom hated them even beyond death flip the switch again so he wouldn’t have to feel that ache that was obviously already still in his heart magnified a thousand percent.

Tagged: LAWRENCE MURPHY * Word Count: 871