double tap, [ idle teens ]

[🌱 kaitlin.]

✧  charlie  ✧

My mouth twists as I stare myself down in the mirror. I cannot shake the sense of something out of place, the sense that there is something not quite right.

Me, manic girl no one knows what to do with, alone here in a car that I am certain I have no business being in charge of, nails gouging into my own skin. I sit and a fidget, unstoppable force meets immovable object, and my breath starts to fog up the mirror with how closely I push my face towards it. Two streaks of moisture where I exhale from my nose, growing and growing as my skin starts to go strawberry pink, a little well of blood vessels popping under the surface as I apply more and more pressure.

Something snaps in my brain and I press my lips together, take a deep breath before sitting back in the driver seat. I rest my head against the seat behind me. I could sleep in here.

I am so tired of being a person.

"You don't need to sleep out here, Charlie," I say aloud, and then have to roll my eyes. "You don't even like your job enough to work that hard."

Great, now I'm talking to myself. Getting the job with the justice building wasn't my idea; I'd have rather spent the summer planning a new campaign to play with the guys I met working for the academy chronicle last year, but that wouldn't add anything to my resume so here I am instead. Sitting in the driver seat to the car I'm supposed to drive to the justice building in the morning, alarm to take my antidepressants pinging five seconds before there's a rap on the window that literally almost scares the shit out of me. I almost throw the water in my hand at the window before I recognize Syrena's face through the glass.

I just furrow my brows at her before rolling down the window.

"It's the night before reaping. Don't you have a party to be at?"

What is she doing here? Is she here for me?

[gamemaker 💀 hades lochlan]

✧  syrena  ✧

"I think it just wasn't a Le Roux party kind of night, you know?" They were only serving champagne, which Syrena couldn't ever drink without needing to burp, like, a gazillion times. Her feet hurt. A lot of the guests were stuffy adults who just wanted to size her and the others up for what's to come tomorrow. Ridley wasn't even there. Worst of all, the walk from the Le Roux mansion to their next destination- a career-kid rager out on the quarry- is at least going to be an hour long. Night's still young and her makeup is fucking perfect though, so she is already decidedly going to the party, but when she happens to notice the driver of the idle car at the end of the block is her cousin, a plan instantly begins hatching in her brain.

"Is that fucking Charlie?" she asks, eyes flitting over to Elvena and skipping past Aurelie entirely in the process. She doesn't wait for a response, already bursting forward as quickly as she can manage in her heels. Her open palm slaps into the glass window before Charlie can notice her presence and she doubles over with laughter when Charlie screams and throws her water bottle. Syrena eventually mouths the words roll the window down with over-exaggerated lip movements, and her little cousin does as instructed.

"It's the night before reaping. Don't you have a party to be at?"

Syrena rolls her eyes.

"Actually Charlotte, you caught us in between functions. We're headed toward the quarry now. Prince Vanburen invited me." She smirks like it should mean something. She has that ability: deciding the things that should matter in a moment. It's how she maintains power, usually.

"Whose car?"

She spares a glance back to make sure Elvena and Aurelie are following her over. A strand of her blonde hair falls into her face for only a moment before being tucked back behind her ear, she turns back to Charlie, and she hiccups. A second's consideration as her eyes focus on something/nothing in the distance, and then she pops the door handle open.

"Scootch."

Not a choice. An inevitability. She smiles and its as clearly a threat as if she'd pulled out a knife and pressed it to Charlie's throat.

"Don't worry, we just need a ride. You don't have to, like, go in. You'll probably be back home in time to play Dungeons and Dorks with Hayden before bed."

[ᴥ]

✧  aurelie  ✧

Something on inheriting the petty burden of a broken bloodline. Something on being told she doesn't belong and to fall in line in the same breath. Something on all the times she's tried and failed to feel some genuine connection to the girls they call her family.

Aurelie has known for a long time there is something wrong with her. She's used to the way it feels like her chest is hollow and her lungs are concave as she follows Syrena down dusky streets. Her cousins' company is a means to an end, Aurelie is not a predator nor is she sweet enough to be called prey. She's a scavenger following her betters with a jaw hung open wide - hoping to collect whatever scraps they're careless enough to leave.

Perhaps Syrena and Elvena brought her along in hopes of finding strength in numbers, more than likely they just wanted somebody to exclude. Aurelie is happy to be either if ten minutes of their company means as much free beer as she could stomach. Which, given the long hours Aurelie has put into improving her constitution, is an impressive amount.

She's managed a happy buzz by the time they leave the first party. It's enough that she almost misses the fact that they're stopping. Like a moth to a flame, Syrena has found an ambition more fragile than hers. Though Aurelie has not known Syrena half as long as her siblings with veins weighed down with Fray blood, she knows well enough the girl would not pass up an opportunity to stick needles through softer skin.

And whatever, if it keeps her happy Aurelie has no problem playing along.

Charlie is out later than Aurelie would have given her credit for. She swallows a sigh as they slip into the poor thing's car. This family is less of a tangled web and more a mat broken string, so twisted around itself that you cannot tell where one begins and another ends. The politics surrounding the younger Frays is something she has not put much effort into understanding as it all probably boils down to deep seated daddy-issues.

Something lost on Aurelie for obvious reasons.

She links her fingers behind her head, only meeting her companions eyes through the rearview mirror.

"I need another beer, can we hurry?"