Teagan Llewellyn (theholyduality) wrote in darker_london, @ 2013-06-27 09:41:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | joss macarthur, kenzie llewellyn, teagan llewellyn |
It looks like freedom [backdated to July 26/7] (Joss, Teagan, Kenzie)
They left in the summer, at the end of July.
They left London the day after Joss had slept with Teagan, who was also Kenzie. The day Flick and Matt had almost exorcised Kenzie for good (almost murdered her a second time). They left town after rushed and hungover packing at both of their houses, after a stop at the storage unit to take Kenzie’s van.
Teagan left her family without saying goodbye. She didn’t consider how long she might be gone, or how much damage her leaving might cause. So she didn’t leave a note. She didn’t respond to April’s text demanding what had happened in her bed the night before. Teagan winced at the memory, embarrassed. She did wish it hadn’t happened in April’s bed.
She wasn’t sure if she wished it hadn’t happened at all, but she knew she wished it had happened differently.
Joss did say goodbye to his brother. Leon trusted that Joss knew what he was doing, and with all Joss had been through lately, it seemed natural for him to take off for the summer holidays. Leon guessed that he and Kenzie’s cousin would be making some form of pilgrimage in Kenzie’s memory, which was on the same continent as the truth, Joss supposed, though a couple of countries over.
Joss was happy the way he left things with Leon. He was less happy about how he left things with Merry.
But he had just discovered for a fact that there was life after death.
And he had just discovered that this wild girl he thought he was falling in love with was a spirit so powerful she refused death when it came for her in order to stay with him.
He was rebuilding his entire worldview; he could put Merry’s frustrated distress out of his mind while he worked out this new reality.
That he was part of a love so powerful that death hadn’t stopped it.
What did you do with a realisation like that?
(Mostly, he discovered, you drove through traffic in silence, your sick head spinning.)
The weight of what they were doing kept Teagan and Joss quiet for the first leg of the journey.
Joss drove. His chest hurt and itched where she has scratched him, but his head hurt too, and that bothered him more than his chest. The scratches on his chest felt important. He could manage important pain.
Teagan managed to sleep a little. She’d washed the blood off her hands, but her nails felt tender, a little pushed back. She felt tender all over, actually. She wanted a long soak, but she suspected that would sting.
Kenzie swirled between them, running her spectral hands over every surface of her van, poking her head through the roof, jumping into other cars and back again. Possessing Teagan was tiring, and Kenzie felt like someone had scrubbed part of her out of existence.
(Possessing Flick had been harder - had been almost impossible. Kenzie had only been able to possess her for a moment, long enough for her to force Flick's hands open and let Teagan go. But possessing Teagan was much simpler. Maybe because they'd already been so close, maybe because of Teagan's inherited disposition for ghostly interactions, maybe because Teagan was not fighting her.)
They drove South East because Kenzie had raised Teagan’s arm and pointed South East, but neither of them knew the area. After crossing the Thames, Joss found himself on the A2, and was content to let it lead him. They were on the M2, a little past Chatham, when Joss turned down the music and said: “We should find somewhere to stop.”
“I guess I am a little hungry,” Teagan agreed. “And, what are we going to do tonight?”
“Find a place to sleep, I suppose.” There was no mattress in the back of the van, like there had been when he and Kenzie had driven to Aberdeen. “And shower.”
Teagan made a small sound of agreement at the idea of a shower. She also knew that when they stopped, she would call her parents. She was tossing up between the truth and an easier lie. If the lie was easier. I ran off with Kenzie’s boyfriend wasn’t exactly easy. Her mother had already sent her a text asking where she was, to which she’d simply replied that she was okay and she would call later.
Of course it was Kenzie who suggested a more believable lie. “A group of us decided to go camping after the party?” Teagan told her mother, late that afternoon while Joss lined up for fish and chips. Teagan had walked away from the van, along the esplanade. “I – well I don’t have any shifts at All Your Base for a few days and I thought yeah? It sounds like fun? And a chance to explore? Yeah it’s sudden, but, I can do sudden things. I’m eighteen. I have been eighteen for four months.”
Luckily, Teagan had spent her whole life out of trouble. Luckily, Teagan’s parents trusted her judgement, and had faith that they raised her to be able to handle herself. The worst bit was, then Teagan’s mum said that she believed her and hoped she had a nice time, she meant it.
Teagan felt crushed with the guilt of lying to her.
There would be another conversation in a few days when she wasn’t home yet, but Teagan couldn’t think that far ahead. Her stomach burned and she wanted to cry.
She hung up and pocketed the phone, staring out to sea. According to signs, they were in Herne Bay, though Teagan had no idea where that was on a map. Somewhere South-Eastish. A quiet town with tidy houses overlooking the sea and a beach of pale gravel, which was currently underwater.
The sea looked almost milky, and the sky hung oppressively close. It was nicer than a lot of London, but it wasn’t the golden beaches of Australia. Don’t cry thought Teagan. You’re doing the right thing.
Joss returned with the fish and chips, and they ate in the back of the van, with the doors wide open. Hot, greasy chips soaked in vinegar and crispy battered fish – neither of them had realised how hungry they really were until they smelled the food. Together they finished all of it.
~
That night they stayed in a holiday park. Teagan went straight for the shower, and Joss lugged their bags into the little living room, picked up some milk from reception, and put the jug on. He leaned against the bench, watching in fascination as the tea bag moved on its own through the air, in the shape of a J.
“Kenzie, you are unbelievable,” he said in a husky voice full of awe. Kenzie smiled, beamed, though he couldn’t see her. She pressed the tea bag against his forehead, and he covered it with his hand. She could almost believe she could feel his warmth, his hand and hers existing in the exact same space.
“I wish I could see you,” he murmured. “I wish I could touch you. I wish we could speak.” He removed his hand from his forehead, releasing the tea bag.
It hung in the air between them, proving Kenzie was there. Proving he wasn’t going completely, irrevocably insane. Kenzie was there. And they would find a way to talk. They had Teagan. But – but that was a harder thought for a little later. “I’m so tired,” Joss told Kenzie, and the tea bag shifted, dropped a little. He smiled, closing his eyes, and had difficulty opening them again.
Teagan had been a long time in the shower, and the water was still going. Joss knew he had to talk to her. They needed to work out what, exactly they were doing. They needed to talk about a lot of things. But – he was so tired. And she was taking so long. It wouldn’t hurt to lie down while he waited.
Joss picked his long black coat off the floor, and lay down on the couch underneath it, and was asleep almost immediately.
When Teagan finally emerged from the shower, fully dressed, hair blown dry, she paused to look at him. His mouth was hanging open, and he had a tea bag balanced on his forehead. Kenzie was perched on the arm of the couch, watching him sleep.
It was barely six in the evening, and the sun was still shining outside. “I’m going to sleep too,” Teagan whispered to Kenzie, who barely acknowledged her.
Feeling alone (but relieved to be so) Teagan went into the bedroom and closed the door behind her. Her own body was bone tired, especially after standing under a hot stream of water for so long. She crawled into the crisp sheets, wrapped her arms around a plastic pillow, and closed her sore eyes.
~
The morning of the second day, Joss woke early and lay on the couch, watching the sky brighten through the curtains that had been left open. He could hear Teagan snoring in the bedroom.
There wasn’t anything floating in the air around him, so he didn’t know if Kenzie was with him or not.
It had been fourteen months since Joss and Kenzie had met, in late in May last year. She’d died on the first of June, and all the potential, all the things they could have been, had died with her. Now she was back… well there was another kind of potential. Joss just didn’t know what it was.
He knew he had to protect her from the mediums who wanted to get rid of her, though. He knew he owed her that much, since he hadn’t been able to save her life.
“Are you there, Kenzie?” he asked quietly, watching the room for a sign. The curtains by the couch shifted a little, as if a ghost might have been there. Joss reached his hand up, guessing where her own hand might be. Kenzie reached out and touched it, and he thought that maybe his hand felt a little odd.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t save your life,” he whispered; hand still in the air above him. “I’m going to try and save you now.”
Kenzie squeezed his hands with both of hers, and Joss felt a burst of pins and needles across his skin.
~
Teagan woke, aware of where she was instantly. She’d slept so lightly and woken up so many times during the night that the only proof she had that sleep had happened at all were her dreams. They had been vivid and drowned with images from the day before and anxiety about the day to come. She felt ill with anxiety, but she could smell toast and coffee and it smelt like mornings at home.
Joss tapped on her door lightly again. “I’m awake,” Teagan croaked, sitting up in bed.
“Morning,” said Joss through the door. “It’s nine, and we have to check out at ten. I made coffee?”
“Okay,” she replied, setting her feet on the ground and stumbling across the room. “I could coffee.”
Joss gestured gallantly toward the tiny square table, which he had set with plates and coffee. She smiled at him, her hair a thin blond tangle around her head. He didn’t miss the fact that she’d slept in her clothes; but then so had he.
She sat, sipped the coffee, scratched her head. The toast popped, and Joss placed a plate of it on the table in front of her. There were small pots of honey and jam on the table. Joss had been very thorough with his hungover packing the day before. She chose the honey, ate in silence.
“I remember the first thing you said to me,” Joss said, after a little while. Teagan looked up at him, pausing her breakfast. “That you only came to London to go to funerals,” Joss continued. “I realised, this morning, I don’t even know you that well. And I’m sorry.”
Teagan didn’t say anything, as she remembered how awkward and jet lagged and surreal she had felt the day of Kenzie’s funeral. “Are you Teagan, right now?” Joss asked, a frown across his face.
Teagan nodded, “Kenzie is there,” she pointed to the air above Joss’s shoulder and he instantly turned to look, though of course he saw nothing.
“How does it work?” Joss turned back to look at her, his curiosity a physical thing, pulling him back toward Teagan. “How do… you work?”
Teagan shrugged as she shook her head. “My whole family,” she said. “We can all see ghosts. I don’t know why us. It’s always been like that. I think it makes us more likely to become ghosts too? My aunt Hannah died a few years ago – that was the other London funeral. She was a ghost and she lived with her husband and Micah for ages. Till…”
“Till?”
“My grandmother, Grace, she… exorcises ghosts. And one day aunt Hannah freaked out and burned down Cameron and Micah’s house and Grace thought she was becoming dangerous so she exorcized her. Her sister died when she was younger and, they’ve- shared a body ever since. Grace and Joy.”
“Shared a body? Their whole lives?” Joss’s eyes were enormously wide.
Teagan nodded. “They worked it out, I guess.”
“So you and Kenzie…?”
“I don’t know how to exorcise ghosts!” Teagan shook her head wildly. “I know that’s what we told Matt… that we wanted to learn, but…”
“I said that to get him off our case,” Kenzie spoke up as Teagan faltered.
“Yes,” Teagan said. “It got him off our case. I don’t think I want to be a medium.” The power was too frightening, too grim. It was well suited to Grace, who handled it by being equally frightening and grim, and Matt the medium had seemed just as terrifying. Teagan wasn’t scary, and she didn’t want to put herself into scary situations. “I’m just a girl… trying to stop her cousin getting murdered again.”
“Do you mind?” Joss asked, “running away, I mean?”
She shook her head and shrugged again. Kenzie flickered to stand next to Teagan, her hand sweeping over Teagan’s messy hair. Teagan smiled weakly at her. "It was the best thing to do," she said quietly.
“The other thing,” Joss said, looking down at his coffee cup. “I wanted to say. Teagan. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I slept with you, the other night.” He had to clamp his mouth shut from continuing I was very drunk. And you were Kenzie. You were a sudden miracle. And I was very drunk.
“Oh,” said Teagan.
“I get that that makes things really, uh, complicated, between us. And I’m really, really sorry if I’ve fucked up there, uh, if I hurt you. If you didn’t want to. Jesus.”
“Um,” said Teagan. Her face has blossomed into a blush so red it was uncomfortably hot. Kenzie was watching her carefully and she felt scrutinised on all sides. “I don’t know… I was very… swept away. Kenzie was in charge. It felt like I was very very drunk except I have never been very very drunk so it felt like how I think being very very drunk feels like? But it was, um, Kenzie you slept with. I was just… there too?” She felt like she was trying to apologise, but to who?
“Still…” Joss said, wincing.
“Still…" Teagan stared at the table. "Maybe we don’t do that again?”
“But-“ Kenzie interrupted, and Teagan shot her with a sharp, sincere look.
“Please,” she said to her dead cousin.
“Of course,” Joss said, watching Teagan’s face as she had a conversation with somebody he couldn’t see.
“But I love him,” Kenzie said, equally sincere.
“I know,” Teagan said. “And I’ll… try. But it was just very sudden. Everything is very sudden. And not… bad? But…”
“Teagan, I can’t touch him myself. Last time I tried I put him in hospital. I have to do it through you, I have to.”
“Kenzie put you in hospital?” Teagan turned her attention back to Joss.
“What? No?” he asked, confused (again). He watched Teagan listening again, as he thought back to the time he was sick enough to end up in hospital, last November. The weird thing with his chest, and how his doctor had said they usually saw that kind of injury in relation to explosions.
“She touched you,” Teagan explained, placing her hands over her own chest, where Kenzie had said she’d touched him. “She’d been practising having an effect on the world around her. She didn’t mean to.” Teagan took in the distressed look on Kenzie’s face and added, “she really didn’t mean to hurt you. At all. Ever.”
“I got better,” Joss smiled up at where he thought Kenzie was. “It’s okay.” He remembered the time around that incident. How vivid and strange his dreams were, how feverishly dreamlike reality had been. “It is. I mean… she was dead. Kenzie was dead. What’s a bit of hospital compared to that?” He grinned his charming, lopsided grin, and Teagan watched as Kenzie started to almost glow.
Kenzie reached out to Teagan, sliding into her cousin’s mind space in a moment. Teagan let her, for now. God knew she didn’t know what to do with herself. Kenzie, now using Teagan’s hands, reached across the table and wrapped her fingers around Joss’s wrists. She could almost feel the warmth, through Teagan’s hands. She could almost feel it.
“Was dead,” she said, repeating Joss’s words back to him, sending a jolt of cold down Joss's back. “Was.”