Joey McCoy is a total daddy's girl. (imanursenota__) wrote in vascaptiolog, @ 2014-01-09 11:51:00 |
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Entry tags: | joey mccoy |
WHO: Joey McCoy
WHAT: Grieving
WHERE: The carnival
WHEN: Day Sixty, late afternoon
WARNINGS: Excessive angst, victim blaming, and she screams a little?
STATUS: Narrative/Complete
Joey would never forget the words that came out of Dean's mouth the night before, but she wouldn't believe them. Couldn't believe them. She'd gone back to the cabin, because Dean was a liar; he had to be lying. Tate hadn't been there. He never would be again. His side of the bed would forever be empty, now, because Stiles was hurt and his friends were uninterested in innocent until proven guilty. She didn't feel safer. As far as Joey was concerned, the attacker was still out there, only now she didn't have Tate to protect her. "I'll never let anything hurt you. I promise." She'd spent the night floating in and out of consciousness, too numb to really sleep, but too exhausted not to. She wore her dad's uniform and wrapped herself around Tate's pillow, wishing that the smell that was distinctly Tate that lingered in the fabric of the pillowcase could fill the emptiness she felt inside; that the smell that was distinctly Daddy could take away her pain. She was vaguely aware of Piper and Carl somewhere in the cabin. She couldn't remember if they'd followed her or found her, but she was too numb to care. They hated Tate. They wouldn't understand her pain; they couldn't. She let them stay because she knew that they meant well, but she wished they would go, because the two of them being in his cabin felt disrespectful. But she didn't want to leave and she didn't want to be alone. She needed to be there. "You can stay there any time you want, I don't mind. I already made my bed up and mine doesn't have springs digging into my ass when I roll over. I actually think I have a better deal." Joey's empty stomach grumbled for attention as the new day wore on and she ignored it. She wasn't hungry. Sleep stopped creeping up on her tired body and she was glad. She wasn't tired. Carl and Piper's voices were a low, mumbling buzz of sounds that didn't create words. She wasn't engaged. Someone attacked Stiles and they were still out there, hiding behind Tate's death because it was safer for them; nobody cared that Tate was a good person, because it was already done and they all felt good about it. They all thought the threat was gone. Joey knew it wasn't and she was scared. "So that means there are people out there who look like regular everyday people, that turn into dangerous wolves on the full moon and they're walking among us in this impenetrable glass dome that we can't get out of...but you came out here all by yourself in the middle of the night and met me at the gas station because you needed to take a walk. That sounds pretty brave to me." She didn't know how long she'd been laying in his bed — until the smell of him faded out of the pillows completely — and she didn't care. She just needed to move. He'd have wanted her to move. Tate wouldn't have wanted her to shrivel away into nothing. He'd want her to live. And it was that thought, that single thought that overrode her fear that Stiles' idiot friends had killed the wrong person and someone dangerous was still under the dome with them. It was that one thought that got Joey to drag herself out of Tate's bed and through the cabin, wholly ignoring her friends except to mumble to them to leave her alone, before she went out the door and started to walk through the forest toward the carnival. "Wait, what? 'Up?'" she asked, eyes widening as she looked up toward the top of the Ferris Wheel. "We're going up?" "I've been up there before, it's okay it won't fall or anything. You just have to know where to step. I won't let you fall." Joey stood in front of the Ferris wheel, staring up at it, at that top car. She ignored the fear of heights, because she'd conquered it already; Tate had helped her do that. Joey ignored the fact that there had been a body hanging there at some point, because it was one of Stiles' friends who'd found it. She didn't register the fact that she'd finally found tears again and she'd started to cry. She didn't hear herself sobbing or feel the tears streaming down her face. Joey marched up to the Ferris wheel with purpose and started to climb. "Wow, you look a lot different in 3D." "I think it depends on whether you prefer a piece of paper or a friend." "I have this beach near my home that I used to walk to go to all the time and I'd just get lost in it, you know? I could just sit there for hours in the sand and look at the limitless expanse, think about school and life..." "I'd rather be alone then surround myself by people who didn't get me." "I'd rather be with people who get me than be alone." "That's part of the adventure. Not knowing." "I've never been very adventurous. I get scared." "Don't be scared. I won't let anything bad happen to you." Joey felt her feet slip more than once and some darker part of the back of her mind hoped she fell. Then she would die and she wouldn't have to suffer this place; she wouldn't have to go home knowing that no one would ever understand what she'd been through, because she was fictional and Tate was gone. Some part of her hoped that she'd fall and then she wouldn't have to feel this pain anymore. She wouldn't have to miss Tate, or her dad, or Aunt Donna and Uncle Fred. If it looked like an accident, maybe nobody else would have to die like Tate did, an unwitting pariah who took the blame because they said so and no other reason. Maybe she wouldn't cause the retaliatory wrongful death with her own like Stiles had with his near-death. ...that wasn't fair, of course, but Joey didn't care just then. She'd feel badly for it later. But she didn't fall. She regained her footing and finished scaling the Ferris Wheel, pulling herself up and into the car that was theirs, still littered with the clothing he'd brought up there to lay across the dirty seats. The clothes were dirty too, now, from the weather. She didn't sit down in the car. She wasn't scared anymore, she wouldn't let herself be scared. "...holy shit, I did it. I actually friggen did it...I just fucking climbed a Ferris wheel!" "It's beautiful up here isn't it? I had to share it with someone." A heavy sob, thick with emotion escaped Joey and she looked out over the town. It wasn't beautiful up here anymore. It was cold and dark and unforgiving. She let herself stand in the top car, her hands white-knuckling the nearest cold steel bar and her body wracked with those sobs that kept coming and coming until there was almost nothing left except his name. ...and she screamed it. Tate's name echoed in the air and she hadn't been calling out for him because she knew he wasn't there. It wasn't a question. It was longing and raw with grief. It was less a scream and more of a heart-wrenching wail and Joey hoped they heard her. She hoped every last one of them heard her, especially Dean because he'd delivered the news. She hoped every single person in town heard Tate's name and remembered that whether ignorant or intentionally blind, they'd all let a teenage boy die and the one person who cared about him missed him and was broken in his wake. "You know if you treat all your patients like this, you're gonna have a lot admirers." "Patients are patients. You're my best friend. It's different." "...I wanna go home, Tate. Would you wanna come with me...?" "All I want to do is be with you. That's all I ever want." "I can still come back to you tomorrow, right? You're not mad?" "You can always come back. Together forever, right? Come hell or high water." Joey sunk down into the seat of the car and leaned her head forward onto the lap bar. Tate was dead and nobody cared except for her. She'd told herself that she wouldn't have to be alone again because she had Tate, but now even he was gone from her and all she had left were her memories. "Stay here with Carl and Piper. There's safety in numbers and there's more of them; they'll keep you safe. ...I love you," he'd said, tucking her hair behind her ear and pressing his lips to hers. She hadn't taken the time to think that something felt wrong about him leaving her there. "I love you, too. I'll see you in the morning," she'd said and at least he'd have that. Tate died knowing someone loved him...even if Joey wasn't sure she actually felt that way so much as the words had tumbled out of her mouth because he'd said them first and that was just how you were supposed to respond, wasn't it? Joey reached into Tate's jacket pocket and pulled out his journal, running her hands over it, her fingertips gingerly brushing over the surface of it before she opened it to the last page with his handwriting on it. His and then hers. "I miss you already." "I miss you, too. I'll come back tomorrow. What time will you come for me?" Joey was out of tears. She was out of everything...she could feel the emotion draining from her entirely. Too lonely to feel depressed; too exhausted to be angry. But, she wasn't ready to come down yet, so Joey sat there in the top car of the Ferris wheel alone and crying still in the absence of tears or energy, because Tate would never come for her again. |