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James doesn’t usually give a shit about the broken kids who filter in and out of the home he’s going to age out of in another year. Tasha’s unique, though. She’s sharp tongued, quick to rise to a fight and equally quick to win them decisively. He hasn’t quite figured out what her damage is, but she keeps it wrapped up tight and deep. It’s not a coping strategy he’s unfamiliar with. What he does know is that she’s not looked this much like a kid in the six months since she arrived with a duffle worth of stuff and a thousand yard stare.
“Come on, Jamie,” she tells him as she meets him outside the ladies room, giggling when he scowls at the diminutive of his name. Everyone else finds his scowl frightening. Tasha seems to actually enjoy provoking it.
She grabs his hand and pulls him back into line for what may very well be the hundredth time on a roller coaster that was probably cutting edge twenty years ago when it was built. Now, it’s a rattling line of cars trundling along a track that he hopes has been inspected recently enough to be sure it won’t come apart mid-descent. Tasha loves it.
He follows along with her, and she leans against him while they wait in the line. Her pupils are blown, and she sniffles a little every so often. James politely ignores the fact that she’s high, has been since they arrived, and is probably going to be until they are close enough to leaving to risk the adults in the care home noticing. She’s happy, and that’s rare enough that he doesn’t much care how she got there.
She’s such a kid like this, giggling herself breathless as the ride takes them swooping down and around a couple loops and a few short corkscrews. Whatever is running through her veins makes it tricky for her to stand well when they climb out of the car this time. He wraps an arm around her waist to steady her, whispering in her ear to pull it together when she stumbles. He deposits her on a bench with orders to stay put and goes to grab soda. It’s not so much that he thinks it will sober her up as that he’s fairly certain she hasn’t bothered to eat recently and crappy blood sugar can’t possibly be doing her any favors.
She grumbles when he returns but sips at the fizzy sugared syrup obediently. She’s starting to settle in a bit, less giddy but definitely not quite back to normal either. It’s a better state of mind for her and one that makes James a lot less nervous that she’s going to get them caught. She hands the cup back to him after finishing better than half of it and asks if they can go ride something else. She sounds nervous, and he claps a hand on her shoulder to break the tension there. Instead, she startles and he remembers the bruises on her skin half a year ago.
“Hey,” he says, drawing out the vowel in an effort to calm her. “It’s all good, Tash. What do you want to hit next?”
She shakes her head, as if trying to clear it and the mask falls almost instantly into place. A bright smile that goes nowhere near her eyes suddenly plastered across her face. “Monster?” she asks, gesturing toward the ridiculously named mass of swirling black metal.
“Sure, kid,” he tells her.
She promptly punches him in the arm. It’s not exactly gentle, either. Tasha hates a lot of things, but being called a kid is pretty high on the list.
“Fine, fine, not a fucking kid. That better not leave a mark, you beast!”
They head for the spinning monstrosity and are in a little black capsule within a few minutes. Once the ride gets going, the capsule is spinning on itself at the same time the entire behemoth is rotating around the fenced enclosure. Tasha’s back to giggling maniacally, and when she demands a second ride immediately after they exit, he goes with it.
He half expects her to ask again when they disembark the next time, but she reaches for and grips his forearm tight enough that her nails are digging into the skin a few feet outside the gates.
“You okay?”
“Just, little dizzy,” she mumbles.
He wraps an arm around her back to steady her and guides her toward a bench, pressing her onto the seat and keeping a grip on one of her slim biceps to keep her from falling sideways. A close look at her eyes reveals that while the dilation is much less than earlier, they’ve started a rhythmic back and forth twitch. Nystagmus, a mostly dormant part of his brain supplies. He remembers it from a health class, maybe? Something he read at some point. At any rate, Tasha’s eyes are jerking back and forth and she’s biting her lower lip, hard. He crouches so that he’s near eye level with her.
“Give me some input, here? You gonna pass out on me or something?”
She shakes her head and grimaces, closing her eyes as she shudders. There’s a distinct sheen of moisture at her hairline now, and the color is draining from her face in a hurry.
“Do you think you’re going to be sick?” he asks.
That gets another shake of her head, but the frantic swallowing isn’t giving him much confidence. There’s no time to get her anywhere near a trash can before she lurches forward. A couple soft belches give way to a groaning heave, and the soda he coaxed into her is splattering the ground a second after he thinks to jump out of the way. She coughs and sputters for a few minutes before her body figures out that she’s empty.
James rubs her back, one hand keeping the wisps of hair that escaped her ponytail away from her face. “You good now?” he asks.
“Still feel gross,” she stammers, eyes looking up at him with the most vulnerable expression he thinks he has ever seen on her.
“Think we can get you to a bathroom?” he tries. Not that he cares who’s looking, but people are definitely staring at the hurling redhead and he’s fairly certain she’s not going to appreciate the audience once she’s a bit more aware of it.
Tasha shakes her head miserably, crossing her arms around her stomach and bending so far in half her head is nearly against her knees. She pants harshly a few times before bringing up the remains of whatever she ate that morning. When she tapers down into empty heaves, James pats her back awkwardly until it’s finally over.
“Think m’done,” she finally tells him, lifting her head and wiping at her mouth with the back of one wrist.
“Let’s go get you cleaned up,” he tells her, levering her to her feet and guiding her toward the nearest restroom. He ignores the glares from a couple parent looking people as he ushers her into the one designated for families. She drops into a heap over the toilet almost the moment he lets go of her and retches up what James is pretty sure must be nothing but bile at this point.
He kneels beside her, cupping one hand under her forehead to keep her from sticking her face in the bowl while keeping the other hand at the small of her back. “Shhh, Tasha, sweetheart, you’re empty. Breathe for me, yeah? You’ve got to settle down.”
“Not your fucking sweetheart,” she growls back, before leaning back on her heels and promptly falling against James.
“Course not. You’re my fucking idiot who should really, really know better than to ride the vomitron high as a kite,” he tells her.
It’s the second time she punches him for the day and this time it’s probably going to leave a mark.