misguided ghosts / mav, naomi & clara.

[sidney]

[presto][/presto]

'cause i'm just one of those ghosts
traveling endlessly, don't need no roads
in fact, they follow me and we just go in circles

It had been one thing to learn what happened to Cleo. How she had been drugged with a paralytic. How she had been bound and gagged and dragged to the abandon building she was found in. How a rope had been placed around her neck and likely forced to stand on a bucket until she couldn't any longer. The Keepers first instinct had been suicide, but when they'd found the bruises she'd hidden beneath make-up and when Clara had vehemently said her sister would never, they had ruled it a homicide.

It had been something entirely different to learn Naomi had been there, too. Had been made to watch Cleo struggle against her constraints. How she had been forced to watch Clara's sister gasp for air as the bucket was kicked out from under her feet. It broke her heart and enraged Clara all at once. Deep down she knew there was nothing Naomi could have done. From what she'd overheard at the morgue from the loud-mouth Keepers, Naomi had been tied up too. Made to feel helpless as she watched the life leave Cleo's eyes.

It still made her sick to her stomach, though. It made her eyes sting with tears at the thought of Cleo being helpless, watching someone just simply observe as she undoubtedly fought to live until the last possible second. It sounds like absolute torture. 

But maybe that had been the point. Whoever killed her sister wanted her to suffer first. Whoever made Naomi watch had wanted her to bear witness, to live to tell the story.

And they got exactly what they wanted.

——

Clara wasn't sure why Maverick's house was where Naomi felt the safest. She was sure there was a story there, a level of getting to know the singer that she hadn't quite unlocked yet, but that wasn't going to stop her from making sure she was all right. It was the least she could do. But what was more important was that she wanted to see her. Needed to, really.

If she was being honest, Clara missed her. Missed the way a look from Naomi made her stomach do somersaults and her cheeks turn red. Missed the way being close to her made her feel so nervous but so safe all at once. A very large part of her just wanted to be near the person she was maybe ready to give her heart to. But another very large part of her wanted to investigate, wanted to know what her sister's last moments were like, wanted to know if Naomi remembered something, anything that could help figure out who did this.

So, Clara had found herself on the front porch of the Poole residence, one hand clutching at the strap of her bag while the other impatiently knocked three times on the door. 

[gamemaker tallis 🧚🏽‍♂️kaitlin.]

maverick. Maverick spends all day sitting awake in the same room as Naomi. She'd shown up in a burst of emotion he could tell she was trying to hide. He could always tell with her, knew how to read her better even than he knew how to read himself. He hadn't been sure she'd want to sleep, but he had left his bed to her, curled up on the little window ledge that he had and wrapped his arms around his knees and wished that he could just disappear. There's a toxic part of him that's glad that she came to him, that it doesn't matter to her that he doesn't live in the big, empty, beautiful house anymore, that his refrigerator is empty and he has no plush bed to offer her. He's got a cheap comforter and a flat mattress that hurts his back, a bed that he barely uses. It's usually full of nightmares. But to her, his house is safe because he's there. She's safe because he's there. He knows that she's wrong, that she's probably safer almost anywhere except for where he is, but still. It's nice to be thought of like that, no matter how much it hurts on the come down. Her mouth is a mess of scars, and she still hasn't spoken the way that she used to. It's like her mouth has been turned inside out, like everything in her has been turned into ice and left to thaw, raw and bloated and just. Not right. It makes his stomach turn, over and over again. At some point, she's sleeping but she doesn't look peaceful, so he gets a cloth from the kitchen and runs it over her face gently, making sure her wounds are clean. She'd been fighting off the drugs still, or at least the memory of them Maverick could tell, could feel her panic every time she started to doze off. When the knock at the door came, he could tell that she was starting to rouse, so he jumped up, bolted to the door and opened it, stepped out and closed it behind him. "If you're here to say some shit about how she should have been in Cleo's place, I'll gut you, Burns."

[sidney]

[presto][/presto]

'cause i'm just one of those ghosts
traveling endlessly, don't need no roads
in fact, they follow me and we just go in circles

She doesn't know what she expected when the door opened and out stormed Maverick. He didn't seem agitated at first glance, but then he turns to face Clara and spits fucking nails at her. Doesn't even seem to care that he's talking about her dead sister. Doesn't even offer up condolences for what she and her family have lost. Yeah, Cleo wasn't everyone's favorite person, her sister included, but still, death was to be mourned. Respected. That was common decency. But Clara soon realized someone as broken as Maverick wasn't capable of offering such niceties. He was only capable of destruction. He only knew how to hurt those around him so they wouldn't notice how much pain he was in.

"You're a real piece of shit, you know that?" She fights against the lump forming in the back of her throat, the dam she'd built to keep any more tears from flowing threatening to burst as she looks up at him. "What am I even saying? Of course you know." Clara takes a few deep breaths and swallows all the emotions creeping up; now's not the time and Mav certainly isn't worth it. "I'm here to see her. To make sure she's okay," she pauses, a flash of Cleo laying still top a cold, metal table piercing her thoughts, "after everything she's been through."

She pushes past him, shoulder checking him as she reaches for the handle of the door he's standing in front of. "You know, the same way I made sure Presley was okay after what you did to him." Clara pauses, stares daggers at him over her shoulder. "That's what people do, Mav, when they actually care about them."

[gamemaker tallis 🧚🏽‍♂️kaitlin.]

maverick. Maverick struck a nerve and he knows it. He always knows it. "I do, thanks," he replies quickly, but Clara's already going on, refusing to let him talk over her. In so many ways, it reminds him of Cleo, the same girl but somehow different. There's a fire in both of them that infuriates him. Or, there was. She has grief written all over her, like he can see the broken parts of her that have been torn out and made to look whole again. He doesn't know what it's like to lose a twin, but he certainly knows what it's like to lose a family member, even moreso, he knows what it is to find the bashed in and ruined corpse of that family member, knows what it is to see exactly the gruesome, horrifying thing was that was done to them. He thinks, at least probably in most cases, that knowledge would stir up sympathy, but all it does it make him want to turn her away even more. He knows what grief does to the living. She shoves her way past him, but he shoves her right back, forces his arm between her body and the door so that he can wrap his hands around her wrist. It's small, smaller than he might have expected it to be, but it doesn't make him flinch away. He never does anymore. The words are a gut punch, the exact thing that he's been yelling at himself for over and over and over again ever since he walked out of Presley's house and didn't look back. He's a barely contained inferno of rage, and he knows it. He knows that he shouldn't have left like that. Fuck, he knows he shouldn't have arrived like that. Shouldn't have gone in the first place. Shouldn't have sat in that auditorium and listened to Presley running bow across string to make magic. He knows. "If Presley cares about me, that's his mistake." Maverick grits his jaw, grips her wrist even harder until she has to let go. Between the lines is something vulnerable, but he knows she won't see it. The only one who ever did was Naomi. "Letting you fucking barge in there is another. Naomi gets to be asked if she even wants to see you." He stares at her for a long beat, opens the door and walks inside. He just assumes she follows. "You wait out here." He says over his shoulder, leaving Clara in the entryway while he walks down the hall to his room. He doesn't want her in his house, especially not alone in his house, but Nai comes first. He knocks gently, then walks into his room to find her.

[[nyte]]

Mav moved houses in the years they'd fallen out. Decadence decaying, a mirror of the boy curled up in the adjacent windowsill. Closer than they've been in a whole and still so many miles away.

Naomi has always been a perfect daughter. Her mother's little girl and divine retribution, owed to her for every year she'd lost because she'd had a son too young and married a man she didn't love. Naomi was meant to become the great songstress she'd never been. It was more than expectations, imperfection was forbidden.

And then Naomi came home with scars on her mouth and smudged makeup, the room still spinning as she fought through the sedative coursing through torn up veins.

All those crash diets and etiquette lessons, for all her mother's careful control Naomi had still been ruined.

"I can't stay there." She'd told Maverick, barefoot on his doorstep and shivering against a slight breeze. Struggling to decide which pair of eyes to focus on, verging on another panic attack. He was no one's safe harbor, but he still felt so much like one right now. Much as she knew she was setting herself up for disappointment, she needed him to be her best friend again.

"Just for tonight." Mumbled as she nestled under his covers, pulling them up over her ears to hide her mouth from sight. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry Mav," She repeated as much whenever she stirred, sweat stuck to her skin and full of too many memories.

The drugs and the nightmares ensured her sleep was far from peaceful, but at least it was easier than staying awake.

Waking up doesn't feel much like waking up. There's a pressure around her neck, another noose to remind her that a part of her is still trapped in that room. The blankets are too heavy, tangling around her limbs in her desperation to escape. Don't speak. She reminds herself, sure that if she pries her lips apart she'll feel the burn of thread within skin. Oh, she hates that feeling.

The sound of the door opening stops her, mid-battle with the comforter, face flushed and breaths coming too quick to be mistaken for peaceful. Mav looks angry, maybe, and a little bit guilty. "Is everything okay?"

It's still agony to speak, but she's relieved to find that the threads are gone. Even if she can only manage a soft murmur. She spreads her fingers over the headboard inviting its chill, certain that nothing will ever feel real again. She'll never know if she's in Maverick's room or if she never left that forest. Maybe she's rotting alongside Cleo and this is purgatory or something worse.

Oh, Cleo.

Naomi's been trying not to think about what must have happened when Clara found out. Didn't want to imagine something she'd found so precious twisted up by grief and rage. She had every right to hate Naomi now, hell with how things ended between her and her sister she should. It's all selfish pride that she hopes no one knows about the game they'd made them play. So she won't have to tuck another ruined friendship under her belt.

"A nightmare woke me, I didn't realize you'd left."

Whatever the reason, he doesn't seem pleased.

[sidney]

[presto][/presto]

'cause i'm just one of those ghosts
traveling endlessly, don't need no roads
in fact, they follow me and we just go in circles

"Oh, don't worry," she starts, eyes still narrowed and mind caught up with all the ways in which she could decapitate the little shithead standing before her. She fancies a woodchipper, the more she thinks about it. Stuffing him in feet first so she could see the look on his face once he realizes there's no saving himself. If Clara could make him suffer like she is right now, without hesitation, she would. "I told him as much," she finishes with a smirk. Like affirmation that caring about Maverick was a complete and utter mistake was something he needed to hear. He already knew, but that's what made it worse.

Clara knows boys like him. Boys who navigate this world without any regard for those around them. Boys who reel people in with tender hearts and more compassion than they deserve. Boys who devour good people, chew them up and spit them out. Boys who use you, abuse you, and leave you wondering what's wrong with yourself. She'd tried to tell Presley. Tried to express to him that it wasn't worth feeling like shit. That wasting his time with someone like Mav, a boy so broken inside that he couldn't tell what real love was if you smacked him in the face, was pointless. She tried to tell him he deserved better, that his heart deserved more. Someone who would cherish it, who would hold it close and keep it safe, not stuff it into a blender and relish the thought of watching it disintegrate into nothing.

"She'll want to see me," Clara says confidently. At first, at least. Before anxiety washes over her and her heart starts to race. I hope, she thinks to herself. Ignoring his stupid request to stay. As if she'd ever listen to a man who spoke to her as if she was a fucking dog. Fuck that. "God, you're such a fucking asshole."

She pushes through the unlocked door (his mistake, not hers), but waits silently in the hallway as he approaches what she assumes is his own bedroom. It doesn't sit right with Clara that Naomi is sleeping in his bed. She wishes desperately to have been the person Naomi had came to. To have been the one place where she felt safest. She didn't like that instead it was with Maverick. With someone who was treating the person as close to someone she could call her best friend like absolute dog shit. It made her grind her teeth. Made her clench her fists where she stood.

What the fuck did Maverick have that she didn't?

"Naomi?" She calls out to her from the hallway, still unable to see her, but she can hear the hushed voices. Clara doesn't hesitate, takes off in a sprint toward where she knows the two of them to be, but she stops dead in her tracks when her eyes land on them. She can feel the color fade from her cheeks as her gaze falls to the scars across Naomi's mouth. Her stomach starts to churn when she notices a rope burn around Naomi's neck. The same one she'd seen on her sister's neck when she'd identified the body. "Oh, my god," she says, a barely there noise that spills out from between her agape mouth. She stands there for a second, dumbfounded. Upset that this happened to not only one person she cares about, but two. Helpless because there was nothing she could have done to prevent this. Nothing anyone could have done to save Cleo's life.

She takes a step forward, hesitantly, then takes off in a sprint to where Naomi stands, pushing past Maverick with another shoulder check. Clara reaches out and wraps her arms around Naomi, probably squeezes harder than she should, but she can't help it. She's so goddamn happy to see her.

"I'm so glad you're okay."