Chapter Text
Dated 3 years ago | Video title: Whether I sink or float, I have very little confidence that I'll be able to swim.
Beyond the windshield, the world is swallowed in the pitch-black quiet of a barren parking lot past four in the morning. The only light inside the beat-up car is the harsh, pale glow of James's phone mounted to the dash. He is sitting in the driver's seat, his knee bouncing rapidly. He’s vibrating with a sheer, suffocating terror—the heavy, crushing reality that he had just dropped out of school and had absolutely no backup plan if this failed. Desperate to ensure he was the first one in line for a drive-thru that wouldn't open for hours, he had started the livestream way too early. Now, he’s just rambling absolute nonsense to the camera, a frantic attempt to keep the chat going so he doesn't have to sit in silence with his own spiraling thoughts.
Three minutes into the video, the girl next to him finally stirs in the dark. Regina had stayed with him for far longer than she ever needed to, refusing to leave him alone in his panic until sheer exhaustion eventually dragged her to sleep against the cold window. Her eyes are heavy-lidded as she blindly reaches for her phone in the dimly lit cabin, not even bothering to glance at him.
The sudden brightness of her screen illuminates her features as she twists her phone toward his face. “Can you believe this nonsense? First of all, statues aren't clever. Some doctor he turned out to be,” she grumbles, her voice thick and groggy in the quiet night as she slumps further into the passenger seat.
“That's not what the show is about, you know. If you'd seen it—the Angels move when you're not looking at them. That's what makes them so scary,” James calls out, his voice a little too fast, a little too loud for the ungodly hour. He twists to lean over the cupholders, his nervous energy bleeding into his hands. A few of his cards slip from between his trembling fingers, earning only a mild, half-asleep glance from her as he continues to stretch across the dark space between their seats.
“There are multiple people right there!” she complains, tapping at her screen, her sleepy indignation cutting right through the heavy, anxious air filling the car. “Now, close your eyes,” she tells him, reaching over in the dark to poke her fingernail against his nose.
James shuts his eyes, the movement immediate and instinctive as he waits for further instructions. For a split second, the oppressive weight of the pitch-black parking lot and his terrifying future vanishes, replaced entirely by her grounding presence.
“Perfect. Now open your eyes,” she tells him, her soft gaze shifting through the shadows down the length of his profile.
“What?” James asks, opening his eyes to look at her.
@MyCatholicMotherIsClutchingHerPearls: What did she say.
@HolyGrailISnappedMyPearls: Oh my God she even brought the receipts.
@HeavensGatesDontTakeMyPearls: Primitive heavy stone pounders and metal chisels were hammered along natural fault lines to flake and break rock.