elodie hunt (iaminfinite) wrote in shadows_rpg, @ 2018-06-13 21:40:00 |
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Entry tags: | #october 2017, elodie, elodie x jasper, jasper |
Who: Elodie and Jasper
When: After school, Monday, October 30th
Where: School parking lot, Jasper's car
Status: Complete
School was school and Elodie was bored, as usual. She’d had an okay time at Chapman’s Halloween party, and had spent most of Sunday passed out, sleeping off the abundance of alcohol she’d ingested. But Monday, and school, was an inevitable evil and she’d gotten through it with little to no issue. She had seen Jasper in the halls twice and her mind had drawn a dark rain cloud over his head to follow him around. Elodie couldn’t really blame him for looking miserable. His sister was missing, his dad was probably fucking the English teacher, and he was dating a cheerleader who looked like she said like at least six times in every sentence. A miserable existence was a miserable existence.
After school, Elodie walked outside and immediately lit up a cigarette as she scanned the parking lot. She planned on walking home, as she did most days when she couldn’t bribe someone into giving her a ride. But as she started walking she spotted the Little Black Rain Cloud walking to his car, keys in hand. Elodie followed, picking up speed a bit until she was walking beside him. Elodie offered him her cigarette. “Bum a smoke if I can bum a ride?” She had something better than cigarettes in her bag, but she’d get around to that later if he depressed her too much.
It had been over a week. A week and a day. Jasper had counted the hours up earlier that morning, in fact, while he sat in history class and pretended to pay attention. The school hadn’t held his absence the week before against him, but he’d known that he had to go back sooner or later. It wasn’t ‘getting back to normal,’ because nothing felt normal and probably never would again. It wasn’t even a desire to graduate and get out of this town, really. Jasper knew he wasn’t leaving, not when there was a tiny sliver of a chance that Amelia might come back. He just couldn't sit at home anymore. He couldn’t drive around and waste his gas anymore. He’d looked everywhere there was to look a dozen times, and his sister was just ... gone. Someone or some thing had taken her, and Jasper couldn’t help her.
So he’d gone to school. Done his best to ignore the looks everyone gave him. Stayed awake in class because he kept having nightmares when he slept. Mumbled his thanks to the teachers and people he actually considered friends who gave their sympathies to him. Tried to see Jules as much as possible in the halls and at lunch. And he’d somehow gotten through the day. He was lost in his own thoughts as he walked to his car when there was suddenly a voice next to him. Jasper couldn’t even be startled. He looked over at Elodie, then down at the cigarette without quite understanding right away. Then her words registered. “Oh ... uh, sure,” he muttered. Jasper accepted the smoke and tucked it into his lips just as they reached his car. He unlocked it and wearily started to climb in.
Pleased, Elodie pulled open the passenger side door and tossed her bag in on the floorboard before she slipped inside and shut the door behind her. She bent over to dig through her bag, finding her cigarettes to light another one for herself. "You don't look like you're sleeping much," Elodie mumbled around the cigarette between her lips as she flicked on her lighter and held it to the tip quickly. "Which, you know... I get, considering why. Weed not helping?" Could anything really help? Elodie doubted it. But she had never 'lost' a family member. And she wasn't sure she would care if she did, except for Wes, and he had been gone so long that it felt like he was missing sometimes.
Several people had told him he looked like cold dog shit today, and Jasper couldn’t even be mad about it. It was true. He’d showered that morning, at least, but he knew he had dark circles going on and looked kind of pale and hollow. He felt pale and hollow and dark. Everything was tiring. All he wanted to do was sleep, and when he slept he had nightmares most of the time. The only time he’d really slept well had been with Jules, and they couldn’t spend every night together. “Puts me out, at least,” he told Elodie as he started up the car and rolled his window down. “But I keep waking up over and over, so ... not really. Popped a few Xanax here and there. But then I get paranoid that she’s gonna come home and knock on the door and we’ll both be too passed out to hear her.”
"Well, I doubt she'd leave if you didn't answer the door right away," Elodie pointed out as she rolled down her own window for the smoke. "If you ever want something that'll like, make you actually feel good for once, just let me know." Between her mom and dad, and now her mom and grandma, there were plenty of options hanging around the house. She didn't actually expect Jasper to take her up on the offer, but she 'liked' him enough to mention it anyway. Elodie was realizing there was a lot of boring kids in Point Pleasant who would probably gasp and run if they knew half the shit she enjoyed. Ah well. "Given what you look like, I know how shitty you must be feeling."
Jasper knew rationally that if Amelia did come home, nothing would stop her from getting into the house, but the illogical fear was still there. That they’d miss her somehow. A tiny window of opportunity to get her back. It didn’t make sense, but very little of how he’d been feeling lately made sense. “I dunno if that’s possible anymore, but thanks,” he muttered, taking a deep drag on his smoke and ashing out the window. Jasper still might take her up on it, if things continued to be unbearable. He had to break sometime. He chuckled a bit at the rest of what she said, glancing over at her. “Damn, that’s cold. Think I ought to withdraw from my beauty pageant this weekend? I been not eating and everything.”
Elodie snorted softly. "Chemicals can make anything possible," she muttered before taking another drag from her cigarette. That's why so many people turned to them when nothing else helped. Kinds words and gestures was something, but was it ever enough? No. It didn't fix shit. Neither did popping pills and drinking liquor, but at least shit felt bearable for awhile. Elodie exhaled the smoke out the window then looked at Jasper assessingly. "I think a little bit of makeup to cover those dark circles under your eyes and you'll be fine. Maybe curl your hair some. But sickly and pale is in, isn't it?"
Maybe Jasper didn’t feel like he deserved to feel good. Or numb, or any of those things Amelia likely couldn’t be. Why should he get a break? He knew his father was continually getting as fucked up as possible to assuage his guilt, but maybe Gavin didn’t deserve that. Maybe none of them did. He pulled the car out of the parking lot and started toward home, taking another drag before he glanced over at Elodie. “Is it? Probably. Gimme a month or two, I’ll have heroin chic down pat,” he murmured. Did anybody even have heroin in this town? Jasper was willing to bet he could find some. Prescription pills were easier, though he’d tried to avoid them for the most part in the past.
"Probably don't even need that long," Elodie said simply. "Heroin's gross shit, though. Don't do that." She would have been shocked if there was any heroin in this town. But, there were junkies everywhere, so who knew. Probably. "How's your dad?" she asked after a moment. "I mean, he looks worse than you. My mom was going to send food over but I told her he's probably sick of that kind of stuff. Like, if you don't have his kid on your arm when you knock, don't do it." Elodie sure as shit wouldn't want strangers on her door pretending to care.
So many people had been nice and generous to them, one would’ve thought they were actually accepted and liked by the community or something. Jasper knew a lot of them were just lookie-loos though. Pain tourists. People who wanted to see how far they’d broken down. It was pretty fucking far. He gave a humorless huff at what Elodie said, but he appreciated it more than he could say. It was the truth. “He’s pretty fuckin’ terrible,” he said honestly, because why the fuck not? “Drinking all day most days. Hasn’t really been back to work. Blames my mom. He gets up for the dogs, that’s about it. I think ... I think he’s given up on her already. But our fridge is full of shit, so ... thanks but no thanks to your mom.”
"You don't want her food anyway. She can't cook worth shit," Elodie said, staring out the window at the houses passing by. Really, her mom probably would have went and got take out somewhere and then dumped it into Tupperware to pass it off as her own. It wouldn't have been the first time. But Elodie wasn't surprised to hear Jasper's dad had given up already. Elodie probably would have given up after a couple of days too, only because the odds of finding a missing little girl alive and okay after that long was so miniscule. "Have you given up?" Elodie asked after a brief moment of thought. She stuck the cigarette back between her lips and looked at him again.
Jasper had no doubt that Amelia wasn’t okay. Nobody just disappeared and then turned up again, right as rain. She was either dead, or she’d gotten lost somehow and was out in the elements, or some pervert had kidnapped her, or some supernatural thing had taken her. If she did come back, she wouldn’t come back all right, but at least then he would know she was alive. She could heal as much as she could, she would have a shot. His hand tightened on the wheel at Elodie’s question until his knuckles turned white, but besides that, Jasper clamped down on the anger it made him feel. Everybody wanted to give up on her, but he wasn’t going to, goddammit. “No,” he said flatly. “And I won’t until I see her body. A bunch of kids who disappeared years ago came back, maybe she will too.”
Elodie hadn't heard much about that, but there was a lot about Point Pleasant that she didn't know about yet. She had been told a few things here and there, some of them super ridiculous, and some of them downright creepy and amazing. If kids had gone missing and returned, there was always the possibility his sister would. But Elodie was betting more kids went missing who never returned than ones who did. "Well, then fuck everyone who's given up," Elodie said simply. "Sometimes I think that siblings know, you know? Like, if something happened to my brother, I think I would know it in my gut. Parents are too blinded by grief and shit to think about that kind of stuff. Anyway." She sighed and took a quick pull from her cigarette. "I think I'm psychic sometimes, and I have a feeling she'll come back."
What Elodie said felt right -- that he would just know if she was really dead, and he didn’t -- but Jasper didn’t know if that was just because it was what he wanted to hear. Maybe it didn’t matter. He was going to keep the faith and keep doing whatever he had to do to help. Which, currently, was pretty much nothing. The frustration was nearly unbearable sometimes. “Yeah?” he asked, glancing over at Elodie. Jasper couldn’t help the tiny note of hope in his voice. He wasn’t sure he actually believed that, but again, it was nice to hear. Everybody else sounded so hopeless all the time. Not for the first time, he thought vaguely about trying to go to Reagan Kelly for help. If anybody could find a kid, it would be a witch, right? “But yeah, I feel like I would know. And I don’t. So. Fuck everybody.”
"Yeah," Elodie said with a solemn nod, because she clearly knew what she was talking about. Obviously. And how cool would it be if Jasper's sister did show up again alive? Elodie would for sure hang her hat on that shit and then charge for her services. Madam Hunt, Psychic Extraordinaire. "Fuck everybody." She tilted her face toward the open window and yelled. "Fuck everybody!" She drew her foot up to press it against the dashboard as she leaned back and sighed. "Maybe that's why some never come back, because people give up. I don't know. I don't know anything. Except for what I do know." Elodie took one last pull on her cigarette and flicked it out the window.
Her shout to the world brought a tiny smile to Jasper’s face. How often had he wanted to scream that very thing to the skies at the top of his lungs? Too many. He didn’t do it just then though, just took another drag off of the smoke and exhaled out the window instead. He chuckled at her words and shook his head. “You’re a pretty good bullshitter, huh?” he asked, glancing over at Elodie again. Some people were just talented at saying nothing with a whole bunch of words, and she seemed like that kind of person.
Elodie's eyes widened. "Who me?" she asked, full of innocence. "Fuck that, I'm honest in every single thing I say." A brief pause and then, "Nah, that's a lie. Sometimes I'm talking and I'm not entirely sure what parts are the truth and what's not. But, I mean, sure I'm a bullshitter. The truth is just usually pretty boring. You figured me out too soon," she complained, flinging her head back against the seat dramatically. "So either you're a bullshitter too, or I'm getting rusty. I may need to work harder."
People who were good at bullshit were generally good liars too. Jasper hadn’t really sussed that part out of Elodie yet, but it sounded like she was one of those. He didn’t hold it against her. Most of the time, the truth was boring. Or too sad. Or people just didn’t really give a fuck, so why not give them a story? He didn’t like talking to people enough to bother, most of the time, but he knew people like her. “Nah, I’ve just got a nose for ‘em,” he said. “Don’t sell yourself short. I’ll pretend to believe shit if it makes you happy.”
"Don't do me any favors," Elodie said with a sigh. "Maybe I'll just start telling you the truth. That'd be something new for me. But, you know, don't tell anyone. If everyone knew I was bullshitting, this place would start sucking more than it already does, and then I'd get bored, and if I get bored, I'd have to do some crazy shit and I'd probably get into trouble and then where would that leave me? Bored again, and... it's like, a vicious cycle." She made an invisible circle in the air between them. "Life's so much more fun when people don't know you. You can be anything you want. It was easier in New York." Not that Jasper cared, but this was Elodie doing her part. Talking about nonsense instead of expecting him to talk, given how shitty his life was at the moment.
Jasper gave her a little salute with his smoking hand. “Your secret’s safe with me,” he said. He wasn’t one to gossip anyway, he hardly talked to anyone, much less about other people. He didn’t mind letting Elodie blabber and spin tales or whatever. It was something to listen to. “I wish people didn’t know me sometimes. Our whole family’s got a reputation in this town. Most everybody knows us.” It was something he’d inherited, and Jasper didn’t really know what life would be like without that aspect of it. And now they’d lost one of their only children, the young girl, and what would people eventually say about that? Jasper wouldn’t be surprised if some people already suspected them of foul play. Shit like this often turned on the families. He just felt numb about it at the moment, he couldn’t really deal with anything more.
"Everybody knows you but do they know you," Elodie said. "Are you some kind of open book? Or do people just know what they think they know. Reputations have some basis in fact, I guess? But most of the time they're just bullshit. Gossip fodder and all that. My grandma said you're trouble makers, but... I mean, fuck, I think I've seen your dad outside like... five times, and usually walking the dogs, and that was before your sister went missing. And you're pretty tame, no offense, but what the fuck do you do around here to earn that kind of rep? So yeah, sure, it's fun to talk shit about people, and exaggerate and make it interesting, but yeah... bullshit, mostly. And fuck them, right?"
Jasper chuckled faintly. He was probably pretty tame by New York standards. He wasn’t out robbing people or shit like that. “I’ve chilled out this year to try and graduate and get the fuck outta this place,” he said. “But I used to get into lots of fights. My dad and both my uncles are scrappy assholes too, and they run some under the table shit out of the bar. My grandpa is a mean drunk fucker, so he makes enemies everywhere he goes. My mom’s pretty crazy. I sell weed sometimes when I can get it, that kinda thing. But that’s enough, around here. But no, people don’t really know shit. I can count on one hand the people who really know me.”
Elodie's lips twitched, only because everything he was describing sounded eerily like her dad. And her mom. Her brother had been the only normal Hunt and he had gotten the fuck out, just like Jasper seemed to want to do. "Every town's gotta have a family like you, I guess. Give everyone else something to talk about. But that's what I mean... people think they know you, but they don't. For me, I like it that way. It's a hell of a lot easier to walk away from shit, anyway. Are you going to graduate and get the fuck out? You have plans beyond all of this?"
Jasper slowed to a stop at a light and glanced over at Elodie again. He didn’t answer right away, as that internal conflict reared its ugly head again. He’d wanted to leave. Gavin still wanted him to leave. Jasper had never really had a clear plan anyway, but now ... he didn’t think he could do it. Go out into the world and try to wing it. “No plans anymore,” he muttered finally, finishing off the cigarette and flicking it out the window. And hadn’t he always known somehow, in the back of his mind, that he would get stuck in Point Pleasant? Graduation would happen, Jules would leave for college and the rest of her life, Jasper would just work somewhere until he took over the bar for his old man, maybe he would knock some girl up somewhere in between. History repeated itself. Everything looked bleak.
"Anymore," Elodie said, arching a dark brow. "Because your sister?" Maybe he didn't want to leave his dad alone now. Maybe he wanted to be around when his sister came home. Maybe the world outside Small Town USA was too scary. Maybe he just didn't have any ambition. Not that the people who stayed close to home lacked it. His dad owned a bar and everything, after all. People seemed happy here, which was super strange to her, but she was still something of an outsider and it was hard to see why this place had appeal. "What did you want to do before all of this?"
Was there any other reason to change plans? Or let go of semi-plans? And why did everybody want to talk about his future all of the sudden? Now really wasn’t the time, Jasper didn’t feel like there would be any future. It would all just be ... existence now. Just like his dad’s life. He cut another glance over at Elodie, this one a bit more flat. “What, you gonna be my guidance counselor now?” he asked dryly. He didn’t want to talk seriously about where he was going with anyone, certainly not the weirdo girl next door.
Grinning, Elodie shifted her foot back off his dashboard to the floor in front of her. "Guidance counselors at least get paid to pretend like they give a shit, and since you're not paying me, that'd be a no. But, if you're at a point your senior year where you're just trying to graduate, the odds are pretty low of actually getting into college. Add in family problems, and that diminishes motivation, right? So, like, your future seems pretty set. That doesn't mean you might not have thought about what you would want to do if the universe hadn't taken a giant shit on your life." Elodie grabbed her bag from the floor between her feet and set it on her lap to dig around inside for her cigarettes.
“My odds of getting into college were pretty fuckin’ low anyway,” Jasper told her. That probably should’ve been obvious, but whatever. He hadn’t thought about going away for college, just going away to get out of Point Pleasant. He guessed that meant she was right -- his future was pretty set. It was goddamn depressing. Maybe he did need to take her up on that offer of something stronger than weed that could actually make him feel good. Jasper didn’t comment on what he’d thought about wanting to do. It wasn’t something he had ever given much thought to. Which was probably pretty pathetic at his age, but hey. It was what it was.
"Same." Elodie shrugged and pulled out another cigarette to light. She needed to graduate at least. She knew most places wouldn't hire without a high school diploma, so... at least she would have that. "But your dad owns a bar, so you can just take over that someday, right? That'd be fucking cool." It was steady enough income, wasn't it? What else was there to do here but get wasted every night. She grinned as she brought her lighter up to the cigarette dangling between her lips. "Or you can marry your pretty girlfriend and live up on those cliffs, looking down on all of us peasants below."
The bar was the only long-term option that Jasper could see at the moment. He was pretty good at tinkering with cars, he’d learned a lot from Aaron, but he would need more education to really be a mechanic, probably. He just hoped that his dad and uncles didn’t run the bar into the ground before he had a chance to inherit it. “He co-owns it with my uncles, so it kinda depends on them,” Jasper muttered. That detail wasn’t super important, but whatever. He looked a little more grim at the mention of Jules. “She’s gonna go to college. Like she ought to. Marryin’ me would probably get her cut out of the family fortune anyway, doubt her parents would approve.” Elodie was probably just teasing him, but he couldn’t quite ignore stark reality these days.
Elodie hummed her acknowledgment in her throat as she smoked. In her mind, girls like Jules Cooper went to college because her parents could afford it and she was probably expected to. She would major in something like the Liberal Arts while hunting down a rich boy to marry. Her greatest achievements will be event planning and knocking out two towheaded children. Elodie smirked around her cigarette for a moment, amused by her own thoughts, though she knew better to say them out loud. Boys could be weirdly defensive about their dumb but pretty girlfriends. "I don't know a lot of people who care what their parents think about their choices...I don't. You don't seem like you would. High school shit never lasts anyway... now that I think about it, maybe I'd make a pretty good guidance counselor after all."
High school shit never lasted anyway. That was what Jasper tried to keep reminding himself of. Just because he and Jules were in love right now didn’t mean they would stay that way. Didn’t mean it would survive distance, outside pressure, just the passage of time. And when it was gone, would he ever find it again? Jasper doubted it. This might be the best he ever had. He felt really old and exhausted all of the sudden, like he was just a speck of shit getting ground under the wheels of a giant and uncaring machine. Why did everything have to hurt so bad, be so temporary? Jasper’s eyes glazed over for a moment as he stared out the front windshield, automatically turning into their neighborhood without even really seeing anything.
Elodie let the silence linger, not bothered by it at all. She didn't expect him to have much to say in the first place. He kind of looked like his dad at the moment, glassy eyed and blank expression. When they got to Jasper's driveway, Elodie reached for the door handle to let herself out. "Thanks for the ride," she told him. "You know where I am if you need anything to help you feel better." If he took her up on it, cool, if not, it was no big. Some people wanted to feel miserable, especially when something awful happened to someone they love. Feeling okay somehow triggered guilt, like they didn't have the right to be all right. She couldn't say that was the case for Jasper, but it could be.
Cutting the engine, Jasper nodded a little. There was a brief internal struggle and he almost let Elodie go, then Jasper reached out to touch her arm. “Hey, uh ... what do you got?” he asked, looking at her seriously. He didn’t want to turn into some pillhead, but the idea of getting stoned enough to feel better was appealing. He knew it would be temporary and fleeting, but he felt like he was straining hard under the weight of this grief. “I’ve got money,” he added, quieter. Elodie had offered, yeah, but Jasper knew he might want more than she was willing to give away for free.
Elodie arched a dark brow and studied him silently for a moment before she pulled the cigarette from her mouth to exhale the smoke toward the open passenger door. "Oxy and Vicodin, mostly. Xanax, but you mentioned already taking some. I've got some Molly." She had brought that with her from New York and had been keeping it for.... something. Probably when she got so bored in this place she wanted to tear apart her skin. Everything else belonged to her mom and grandma, but they rarely noticed when she took a few from their pill bottles. The two of them were a walking pharmacy with their issues. "If you want something, I'm not going to charge you for it. Just owe me a favor later." That always came in more handy than cash did, depending on the situation.
The painkillers sounded better to Jasper at the moment -- he’d really loved Molly the couple of times he’d taken it, but it was wasted if you took it alone. Maybe he could get some later and convince Jules to roll with him, and he could make that interrupted sex up to her for a few hours straight. For now though ... “Can I get a few Oxy and Vics?” he asked. “I’m good with owing favors.” He wasn’t sure what he could do for her, but what the fuck did it matter? Jasper would do whatever she wanted, pretty much. And maybe Elodie was just saying that so he wouldn’t shove money at her or something anyway. So they wouldn’t feel like pity-pills.
"Yeah. Give me a second." She got out of the car and shut the door, walking around the back of his car toward her lawn next door. Elodie would have invited him in, but her grandma was probably passed out and who knows what state her mom was in, if she was even home. Jasper seemed like the kind of guy Tamara Hunt would want to try and Mrs. Robinson. Digging her house key out of her bag, she unlocked her front door and disappeared inside. It didn't take her long to grab four of each - which she thought was pretty generous for them being free - and dropped them into a small Ziploc. She kept it in her curled palm as she headed back outside, her cigarette nearly finished as she approached Jasper. "You're not supposed to take them with alcohol, but I think that gives it the right kind of kick," Elodie said, offering the baggy to Jasper. "But what you do with them is your business and all."
Jasper was out of the car and leaning against it by the time Elodie came back. This wasn’t a terribly subtle drug deal -- or drug gift, since he wasn’t paying for it -- but he didn’t give a fuck. Let their neighbors call the cops if they wanted to. He took the baggy and palmed it into his jeans pocket, pulling his cigarette pack out afterward to shake one loose. “Thanks,” he said, genuinely meaning it. “I owe you one.” Or a few, whatever. He wasn’t sure how many she’d given him, but it hadn’t felt like enough to overdose on or anything, and he wondered if she’d done that on purpose. Not that he’d expected a whole bottle or anything; one had to steal pills carefully. Jasper straightened up and gave Elodie another nod. “See you tomorrow, probably.”
"You owe me eight," Elodie said with a grin as she began to walk backward in the direction of her house. She was pretty sure the only nosy neighbor on this street was her grandma, and she was otherwise occupied. "Hope it helps, though. See you tomorrow." Elodie saluted him before flicking her cigarette away and turning on her heel to head back to her house. He wouldn't overdose on what she had given him, and if it had been a purposeful thing on her part, she hadn't done it consciously. But if it helped him feel good for a bit, that was something. Better than fucking casseroles, anyway.