55"Hey," Jas whispered as the stirring form reluctantly opened his eyes to another day.
Sash unconsciously smiled at her. He didn't exactly know why he was so glad to see her; maybe he was just in a good mood. She was lying down on her side facing him while gently rubbing at one eye as though she herself had just woken up.
"How are you?" he asked, his eyes once again noticing the angry marks on her face.
"At the moment, better than you," she replied glumly, registering once more his pasty complexion just as he had her scratches.
"I don't look that bad do I, Love?"
"As opposed to how bad you normally look?" she countered sarcastically, but with a smile adorning her lips.
"Well I suppose you are feeling more yourself then," he replied dryly as he rearranged himself on the chair, "back to denying how absolutely breath-taking I am."
"Oh yes, quite," she scoffed, propping her head up on her hand to look at him more comfortably.
"You going to tell me how you managed to get those adorable scratches?"
Jas frowned. "Well, I suppose I have to don't I?"
"Why is that?"
"Because it was the girl from my vision who did it," she stated matter of factly before smothering a yawn with her hand.
"A little clarification would be gorgeous," Sash said after she held the silence.
"Why can't you just read my mind?"
"Because I don't read minds."
"Well aren't you lacking then?"
"Slightly, but I hear I excel in all other areas…" Sash winked at her then and she batted at his arm.
"Enough of that Marquess."
"What sort of man would I be if I passed up an opportunity of that quality?"
"A wise one."
"Hardly."
"Anyway, as I was saying. I saw the girl from my vision, and she went crazy when I confronted her. It was the same girl I saw in Dr. Dave's office and this time she was real. I even have the scratches to prove it, now don't I?"
"That you do, and she did a pretty good job. You give as good as you got?"
"I didn't get a chance to, they tranquilised me and I woke up here with you beside me. You know you've been asleep for around 6 hours?" She smiled as he raised his eyebrows at her comment. 6 hours…
"6 hours?"
"Yeah."
"Wow…"
"Quite."
"Why didn't you wake me up?" he questioned, dragging his hand through his hair.
"Because you needed it. You look bad now, but you looked close to dead before. How long has it been since you slept?"
"I've been living on 10 minute power sleeps. I haven't exactly had a place to sleep."
"Why didn't you just go back to my place?"
"I didn't and still don't know what to say to your Dad," he replied cautiously, watching her eyes as they drooped slightly.
"Oh." She looked down at her blanket for a moment, distracted, before she looked back up into Sash's eyes. "Any solutions to my predicament?"
"Sorry to say, no. Dr. Dave has no police record, his reputation so far is as clean as a stolen car, and I've had no brainwaves of the miracle sort as of yet." She didn't look as disappointed as he expected, though that fact didn't stop him from feeling like a dick in the failure department. "But remember, if the girl in your vision is here then we have a chance. If we find something out about her, maybe we could go from there."
"Yes, I suppose so. But quite honestly, she doesn't look as though she is one of the coherent sort," she mused, lost in thought.
"I can see to that," he assured casually, draping his arm over the back of the chair.
Jas gave him a look which seemed to say 'quite' then and just sat there thinking. At the rate they were going, with only a highly-strung and fragile girl as their only hope, she didn't see her stay in "hospital" ending any time soon. Especially with that last incident looking suspiciously like she was the one attacking the girl, her status had probably sky rocketed from aggressive to dangerous and hostile. She was surprised they hadn't moved her to a more secure room yet or at least secured her with some restraints, her sanity would be truly threatened if she were made more helpless than she was already. Sure, she was in for observation now, but it wasn't long until they started handing her pills and making her talk to a doctor similar to Dr. Dave, or even worse, Dr. Dave himself.
"Sash, I really have to get out of here, I don't think I can afford to stay in here much longer. I mean, I could be deemed too dangerous for release, or they could make me take pills I don't need or they could strap me up, and what if they make me talk to Dr. Dave? I am powerless; I actually cannot control what they do to me. I have to get out of here, now," Jas grew increasingly panicked with her every word, and so was Sash if he was honest. Because she was, no matter how brutally, right.
"It'll all be ok; I won't let them do anything to you," Sash then gently swept the back of his fingers over her scratches, taking away some of the redness, some of the pain.
And looking into his softening eyes, she believed him.
~`````~
Hello before school fantasy.
Treasa swayed into the Wood's apartment, searching with her eyes about its light streaked interior for her creature, her own personal toy. She halted in her stride as she stepped into the lounge and began to absent mindedly fiddle with her coat's buttons, eyeing smugly the couch and dwelling in the memories she had made, the old fashioned way, on its cold brown leather. The smile which pulled at her lips suggested those particular memories were more than welcome to distract her any time.
Surfacing from her reminiscing, she slowly turned and walked to the kitchen, stopping in front of its doorway in order to peer inside for any trace of life. None. Her brow creased slightly and she stalked over to Jake's room, throwing his door open as though it were holding hostage some delectable version of Jude Law, only to be greeted by a significantly loud emptiness. It was 8:00am on Friday morning, a school morning, a morning where she was supposed to meet up with Jake before school due to issues outstanding. Issues such as that of her reading a heart stopping romance novel that had made her feel quite deprived, Jake had never ripped HER top off before. And her goal was to make him. Of course she couldn't do that if his body was absent, his hands, his mind…
Nobody stood up Treasa Scott.
Withdrawing from Jake's victim door she briskly made her way over to the bathroom, her piercing blue eyes determining it to hold no human of the male variety. Treasa just stood there, looking down at the white tiled floor dumb founded, abruptly placing a small hand on her hip.
"What the fuck am I supposed to do now?"
Suddenly feeling an object dig into her clenching fist she opened up her hand to reveal the bronze key Jas had given her in order to avoid her…persistent and interesting knock. She glared at the key as if she could burn an explanation for Jake's absence out of it. A very good explanation. Just then she heard a door opening from the other side of the apartment, and whipping her head around she spotted Mr. Wood emerging from his room in a dark brown business suit while struggling with his tie, his sandy hair in a complete disarray.
"Hi Mr. Wood," greeted Treasa, not attempting to disguise the disappointment in her tone. Afterall, he wasn't top tearing off material; it was top tearing off material's father.
Mr. Wood seemed to freeze for a second, his struggle with his tie abandoned as he looked up to take in the girl wearing the school uniform and her familiar sweet face, "Oh! Treasa, wh-what are you doing here? You do know Jas is-"
"Yes, yes, I know. How are you?"
"Oh I'm fine, and yourself?"
"I'm good, thank you," Treasa replied, feeling too melancholy to engage Mr. Wood in the light hearted conversation she would usually initiate, and instead began to bore a hole in the white wall with her eyes. This wasn't like Jake. This wasn't Jake.
Mr. Wood just stood there awkwardly, knowing something was wrong, but not knowing how to address the situation. He didn't know how to handle issues which mattered and he preferred to distance himself from them as much as possible, avoid making things worse, causing more hurt. Celeste was good in times of sadness; what she did was wonderful, she made things better. She was so good.
It was amazing how the most beautiful intention could go so horrifically wrong.
Looking at Treasa's troubled expression one last time, he began again to tie his tie and made his way to the kitchen, banishing the guilt which threatened to follow him all the way to the coffee pot and out the door.
He couldn't handle any more guilt.
~````~
Jake couldn't handle any more guilt.
His hands deep in his pockets, dark hair falling over his down turned face, he walked silently down the too quiet residential street, ignoring the beauty and rebirth of spring as the trees' shadows allowed only a few soft shards of light to pierce their renewed canopy. He was supposed to go and see Jas at 10 o'clock this morning, but knowing it was him who had put his sister in a mental ward was weighing heavy, and if he saw hatred in her memorised green eyes, he wouldn't be surprised.
He would hear his heart shatter.
~`````~
9:57am.
Mr. Wood stood in the cold, and impossibly white hospital corridor with Treasa Scott, waiting for his son to make an expected appearance. He had invited Treasa after a spare of the moment decision when he had been just about to leave her to herself with her frown and ice blue eyes of certain destruction. He had had one foot out the door, and the guilt had quite literally spoken on behalf of his logic.
But then she was practically family.
9:58am.
Mr. Wood became restless and began to fidget with his sliver wedding ring as a cold wave of deja vu flowed over him. He was sure he had stood in the exact same place waiting to see Celeste, waiting to hear of Celeste, waiting to talk with Celeste. And now it was happening all over again, except with his daughter. He had been so relieved and amazed when he heard her voice on the phone last night, she sounded so normal and so like her mother. Though his amazement had quickly transformed into terror though when he realised how easily he could lose his daughter to a similar madness. He only barely survived losing Celeste. He didn't know how many lives he had left.
10:01am.
"Damnit, where is he…" Treasa muttered, massaging her forehead as if she had a headache.
"Why don't we just go ahead without him? I'll just tell the receptionist to give him a message when he arrives," Mr. Wood reasoned patiently.
"You mean, if he turns up."
"He'll turn up, he always does."
Treasa was about to ask Mr. Wood to define "turning up" when at exactly 10:03am Jake Wood rounded the corner, dark circles around his eyes announcing a lack of sleep, his expression a lack of peace. Treasa forgot her anger and zoned in on her worry as she hurried up to him and enveloped him in a hug. And as he kissed the top of her head, holding her tightly, she knew Jake always turned up.
"You two…?"
Jake and Treasa disentangled themselves to face an amused Mr. Wood. "We most definitely are," Jake announced, laughing slightly as he took in his dad's raised eyebrows.
"Great. Let's go." Mr. Wood then swiveled around and started to briskly walk down the corridor towards Jas' room, fully aware of Jake and Treasa holding hands, following slowly behind.
~`````~
"Dad!"
Jas had never been so glad to see her father before in her life. His out dated glasses, tousled hair, forever askew tie, and of course the most comforting face she ever could lay eyes on, at that moment were better than coffee. Were better than anything.
As he rose up his hand to wave, Jas uncharacteristically got up out of bed, endured the freezing linoleum, and hugged him tightly, burying her face in his shoulder. Despite all his absence, it was hard for her not to adore her dad, not to admire him. And as he hesitantly hugged her back, she loved him all the more.
Jas pulled away and looked behind him for Jake, and couldn't help but feel sick with disappointment at not meeting his soothing green eyes, so akin to her own.
"Where's Jake?"
As if on cue Jake's head popped hesitantly around the door, meeting her eyes as though reluctantly. He looked awful, almost as bad as Sash, but when she looked at his face more carefully he looked more hunted, more plagued than tired.
"Jake, what are you doing? You do realise that the conventional method of getting into a room is through a door via legs and head, not purely head. Obviously Dad should have enrolled you in an entrance etiquette class, how you have survived as long as this I am not sure, but then how you live without a reasonably sized brain has also been a mystery to me," Jas struck a ponder-some pose with her finger to her chin and continued to drawl, "do enlighten me in your…what you could call, 'half pie' ways."
Jake seemed to lighten up at the acknowledgement of his inferior existence, and his smile seemed to blind his sister as she returned one, just as big, if not more troublesome.
"I love you sis."
"Love you too."
She really did.
~`````~
AHH! Don't look too surprised at the…reasonably…prompt update. Heh, love you all! Thanks to all who reviewed, all who reviews, and all who reads, comments and people who actually take the time to read my stuff are like caffeine to my feeble being :)
Many thanks to Aimee Raven for making me aware of the awful repetition! I hope this chapter was a little less tedious :)
Hehe, also many thanks to on with the kill for putting up with my constant annoying and unneeded emails to her inbox, LOL. I blame the internet and the gene pool I came from.