Pretty When You Cry - Chapter 8
TITLE: Pretty When You Cry
FANDOM: Ginger Snaps
RATING: Hard R
DISCLAIMER: I wish I owned it. Then maybe I'd have continued the fandom in comics or something, instead of leaving us hanging with the unsatisfying fate of both sisters. BUT I don't own it, so I must settle to write fan fiction that no one reads for free. Life sucks, huh?
8. SLEEP TOGETHER
Morning already; she couldn’t see the difference in the dark, but felt it never the less. Like there was something looming behind the closed curtains, like the air was fresh with morning dew. She tried moving a bit, only to find her muscles stiff and aching, and additional limbs wrapped around hers. So it hadn’t been just a wet dream made up by her exceptionally delusional mind? No she’d really let him touch her without gauging his eyeballs out and even ended up liking it for awhile.
Ginger took a deep breath carefully, bit her lip and wondered how to squirm out of this bed with Jason’s hand still left affectionately over her breast. Could she remove it without waking him up, because something told her this time it wouldn’t be so easy to pretend it hadn’t really happened?
She couldn’t believe she’d allowed herself to be coaxed into believing intimacy would solve all their problems. There’d been hurt and bruises, an obsession to drown her in him and eventually they’d reached a peak. She’d come and he’d come and their sweaty bodies had clung onto one another while the short-lived euphoria had slowly become a void instead. They’d repeated the action with the same result once and again.
Now she laid next to him, the disappointment still a fresh wound in her mind. Just dust. A supernova of ten seconds or less and all you ended up feeling was the discomfort of the other person’s closeness. This was worked: them and their pathetic attempts to connect. She’d tried forgetting everything she knew, everything that chained her down and just gone with the flow. There’d been a spark between them even at school, an ache he brought up, an ache she hated because it’d been betrayal to herself, to Brigitte. It shouldn’t have been hard to hold one another and then have him fuck her senseless, leave her seeing stars - But it was; it was hard to get there and it was hard to get out when her orgasm dissolved. It wasn’t worth it.
This was the time to go, she decided and glanced at the door behind him and let her eyes fall on his sleeping form afterwards. In retrospective, this was the point she should’ve walked out instead of looking at the boy beside her and realizing there was nothing outside that door.
It still didn’t mean anything though; just her consummating the deal, putting an end to her own hunger with him because he happened to available. Ginger didn’t grow attached to people, they weren’t worthy of her attention unless they were giving her something in return: Something she could use, something she wanted. The boy in the bed fit in nicely, was just another selfish bastard for her to use. Before she hadn’t had any respect for him, and now she had some, but it wasn’t enough. Not enough for her to look skin-deep and admit there might be something there.
The fact remained that she hadn’t jumped on this train entirely willingly though. He’d been shearing her to this by saving her, making her dependant on him and then locking her up in yet another dark room with him. She couldn’t have helped it; the jolts climbing her arms, invading her insides had made her crave for it, for him. Some animal instinct in her was drawn to him, making her weak in the knees near him, so yeah, it had to be physical.
Well she didn’t want his hands on her anymore, they felt like a cage, like cold bars separating her from freedom. He didn’t own her, not because they’d fucked, or because he’d come to the rescue or paid for her food. By doing that, she could let him tear apart as many earlobes as he wanted to, but not cuddle against her like this.
Ginger moved, pulled his hand down from her front and incidentally awoke Jason. “Ginger?” he mumbled groggily, getting greeted by her low cursing voice right after. “Oh fuck me,” Ginger mumbled, her expression shifting from distressed to irritate. “What?” He asked, fully opening his eyes now and seeking for her face in the dark.
“I’m bleeding again,” she said, withdrawing from his side soon after. Jason pushed himself up from the bed to watch her go and caught the scent of blood all over the place just now. A river of blood ran down Ginger’s inner thigh and the same red was all over the sheets too. Ginger grabbed a towel on her way into the bathroom and slammed the door closed after her.
There was something about this situation, Jason thought groggily. Kind of like a déjà vu.
She stepped right under the warm water, ignoring the heat when it turned too hot. She didn’t dare look at her feet, where the bloody water pooled at before being drained out of the small space she’d occupied. Her hair was longer again, close to its original length but she couldn’t feel joyous for that. She didn’t feel like the Ginger that’d had that hair anymore.
The hot water embraced her face, tried so hard to wash away the sullen face but failing eventually. She tore the bandages from her stomach only now, casting her eyes on the ugly scar that dominated her abdominal area. She slid her hand over it, her nails tracing its surface. It was what she had left of Brigitte, proof of them falling apart. God she felt alone, didn’t want to lean onto that jerk’s shoulder for solace, but didn’t really see anyone else who’d be even willing to look at her at this point. They were long past the point of no return.
Accept it or not, but this is the way the rest of your life is going to be; moving from one city to the other, holding onto Jason in the dark until the cycle began anew and everything seized being difficult for awhile. Was this what she’d been aiming at? Was this dark fairytale the thing she’d tried avoiding by talking about suicide and violence, and feeding her ever-growing misanthropy?
Either way, she couldn’t stand under the running water forever: Play dead and hope he didn’t come in to check her pulse. Ginger grabbed the water tap, and closed it with a sharp twist. She was left standing there, water escaping her skin, the distressing thoughts slowly dissolving back to the background. She tied the towel around her and got out.
Jason had dressed up meanwhile and cleaned up the bed, taken out the bloody sheets. He walked up to her the same instant, his hand landing over the side of her neck. Again he was so close; the touch forced her neck erect, stiff. “What’re you thinking?” He asked, perhaps worried over his performance, or her reaction, or something else. She really didn’t want to know.
“Having a blank moment,” she replied evasively and sat on the bed’s edge.
So Ginger wasn’t exactly beaming in her afterglow, Jason noticed and suppressed the need to sigh deeply. He hadn’t honestly expected it get easier here on now. Sure he could try beating sense into her but seeing her this way made him ache, in a bad way never the less. Like he was actually sympathetic, could tell she was broken. The old Jason wouldn’t have given a shit, just left her to converse the angst with her sister since the two had been best friends. Guess now it meant he’d have fill in that role as well.
“That’s great. You think you could attend the world of the living for a moment?” He noted sarcastically, already wishing she’d vanish from his sight for awhile, but since he had guarantees she’d come back if he let of out of his sight, he had to settle for shearing her along and ignoring her bitchy attitude.
Ginger turned her face at him, eyes clear from doubt or nausea and jaw line strict as she prepared to tell him off again. Jason saw this coming from miles away, so he wasn’t exactly surprised of anything she went on to say.
“I don’t wanna talk about it - Ever.” She could certainly make her point clear; he realized and looked right into the abyss, finding that it wasn’t such a scary place after all. “Fine,” he said, and picked up the sheets from the bed again, then throwing them inside their bathroom.
He was okay with that? Ginger stared back, her skin breathing poison by now. Of course he was okay with everything. He’d gotten laid - again - and it meant that his master plan was working. Also he had a definite connection to his werewolf abilities whereas all she’d been able to do so far was to regenerate that fucking hole in her stomach. Overall the fucker was on the winning team no matter what she did. She hated him for doing this to her, for making her need him and yet already she couldn’t even dream of leaving him behind.
She dug up her comb from the pocket of her jacket almost apathetically, unwilling to give the restless thoughts more room inside. Then she sat on the bed again, glanced at his back carefully, turning and touching the surface of the plastic comb in her hands. She shouldn’t ask him, even thinking such felt like sacrilege, and yet she wanted it, needed it more than her false pride.
“Would you comb my hair?” Ginger asked, vulnerable, open. Her voice wiped the anger from Jason, made him turn to her and then take the comb from her hair with a silent nod as an answer to her request. She pulled the towel on tighter, moved her tangled her to hair back and waited for him to sit behind her, skin already sensitive to his touch.
He looked at her inviting neck, those messy red curls that made snake-like patterns against her skin. He could tell she hadn’t wanted to ask but had anyway. The way she stood was almost like a surrendering pose, a humble one. Or maybe it was just that to his eyes that were always watchful for any signs of clemency in her. She didn’t show him much of that side, always kept her armour in place.
Jason ran the comb through her moist hair. She’d already dried it on her towel somewhat, so it didn’t drip water anymore and was only mildly cool in his hands. The comb got stuck in her hair for a few times and she made an angry remark, but didn’t make him stop. Her mind was clearly elsewhere, she looked somewhat nostalgic. Maybe this was another task that’d once belonged to her sister.
And as if to confirm his doubts she sighed and tilted her head a bit. “We have to find her. She’s so close, I can feel her.”
Jealousy struck him with a tender hand, but he didn’t voice those thoughts. She’d understand eventually, see that he was all she had left and that finding Brigitte wouldn’t change a thing. And she would cry and scream and he would tell her these truths he’d seen way before she had. She’d understand eventually. She’d have to.
Upon finishing his work he handed her the comb back and she took silently. He’d already gotten up and walked a few steps when she finally voiced her gratitude. “Thanks,” Ginger mumbled, like she had a tumour in her throat that kept her from saying most of the words he needed to hear. It was good to hear this though; it meant she’d been listening to him after all.
“Hungry?” He asked, picking up the key to the room from the table and then his jacket from the floor.
“Yeah,” she admitted, looking back at him with dull eyes that proved how peckish she had to have been by now.
Jason nodded, pulling his jacket on now. “I’ll go get something,” he promised, bracing himself to the cold waiting outside. It was almost too silent in this room, too ethereal. The heavy morning wasn’t as hot and sultry as it’d been when he’d woken up. He was at the door when he looked at her again and asked, “Need anything else?”
Ginger just stared at her own toenails, disconnected for awhile. “I’m gonna need some rags,” she confessed eventually, not exactly willing to converse this subject with him. Then again, she was talking to the same guy that’d told her to take the edge of her cramps with a good tonk. He’d already been a bit too knowledgeable back then.
A smirk crept across Jason’s face at this point and he walked behind her. “Considering you don’t have any underwear, shouldn’t I buy tampons?” The way he said it just made her skin crawl, like he really wasn’t talking about tampons or anything related. Ginger swallowed up her excuses and just hissed an angry “Whatever” at him.
Jason recognized the withdrawn tone of voice though; it was embarrassed, humiliated. Now wasn’t this surprising? “You have used them before, right?”
“No. I haven’t.” She’d kill him for this. Slam him on the bed and claw his face off. Maybe she’d enjoy eating him in a few weeks if he hadn’t gotten too rotten by then. Ginger enjoyed that mental image, but was forced right back to reality when Jason lifted his knee on the bed and leaned over it to bring his face by her neck again. “It’s okay,” he said, like the sly devil she’d never taken him for. “I can show you how.”
She hit him with her elbow without even thinking it further. The pain never made him stop but seeing him engulfed in it, hearing the wailing noises, sure made her feel better. “You don’t need to do that,” she answered coldly.
Whoa, icy! Now that was really a low blow considering she’d had nothing against him touching her like that last night. Then again, her memory always seemed to fall short when it came to these kinds of situations. Suddenly she hadn’t just kept him awake for hours out of her own free will, or tagged along in the first place for the same reason. Like a cornered animal, she really thought hostility was called for. “Whatever you say, Fitz.”
He retreated, made his way to the door again. She raised her voice before he had the chance to flee through the door. “Jason?”
He only stopped because she hadn’t called him by his last name, or with some insulting title. She’d called him Jason, just… Jason. “Yeah?”
“Bring me something to shave with too?”
- Now that you could almost call a sincere tone of voice. He’d have to memorize it, because something said he wouldn’t be hearing a lot of it in the future.
TBC