Work Text:
Mother Mary, won't you whisper,
Something but the past is gone...
- Tool: Sober
She’s drunk again, the scent of vodka on her breath as she crawls under the covers and nestles against his side.
“M’sorry, Jamie,” she murmurs.
“You don’t have to apologize,” he tells her, rolling over enough to wrap his arms around her, hold her, still the tremors of her chilled form.
He tries not to think too hard about how long it’s going to be before he’s not here anymore to keep her from shaking to pieces. His birthday hits near the end of summer, and with it, his age out date. The state is obligated to provide for him room and board until the day the numbers turn over from childhood to beyond, the day he goes from troubled kid to worthless adult. She snuffles against his shoulder, and he runs his fingers through her hair in effort to ground her.
“I’ll miss you.” The words are barely more than breath, but the weight behind them is enough to pull the air from his lungs. It’s the elephant stomping around the house these days, the fact that they’re closer than blood but there is no blood to keep them close enough. She’s too young for this, too young to be so drunk so often, too young to be the most vigilant human he’s ever seen. He wants to fix it, to tell her that it’s okay, to tell her that he won’t leave, that she won’t face two more years in this limbo of being profitable but not worthy of anything more than food and shelter.
“I’ll miss you, Tasha,” he replies. The rest of the words aren’t meant to be said, would only make things worse, harder, and he promised himself he isn’t doing that to this little spindly thing with a roundhouse kick that could take out an MMA master. He waits for an answer, but only gets silence. She’s gone so still that he considers shaking her back awake, just to be safe. But then she whimpers, and a hot tear seeps beneath the collar of his shirt. Tears aren’t meant to be addressed, are private, sacred. So he stays as still as he can and lets her cry herself into drunken sleep. They can talk in the morning. If they do at all.
She does this more often than either of them want to talk about in any kind of detail. Nightmares bring her to his bed or him to hers. Panic attacks in the night send him to the hardwood floor near her hiding place beneath the bed, outstretched hand offering the only comfort she can tolerate in those moments. These nights, though, when she wanders around the no name town in the dark until her legs won’t work and her stomach will revolt if she takes just one more shot, they’re becoming more common than all the rest put together. The closer the end of summer comes, the more time she spends in his arms. He knows the chances of maintaining contact beyond the last days of July are practically nil. But it doesn’t stop him wishing they could stay more than ghosts of foster siblings past.
There's a shadow just behind me,
Shrouding every step I take,
Making every promise empty,
Pointing every finger at me...