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“Shit, Tash,” he tells her, arms wrapped around her tiny little waist with barely a second to spare before her wobbly legs stop functioning altogether.
“M’kay.”
“I see that.” James shifts her weight until he can get an arm under her thighs and hoist her up properly. For her part, Tasha drops her head onto his shoulder and slings her arms around him. It’s – not helpful.
“Ow,” he grumbles when her forearm connects with his eyebrows.
“You could let me walk,” she murmurs back, but the groggy lilt to her voice says otherwise. She’s not in any fit state to self-ambulate. He’s seen her try enough times to know she has no concept of what is and isn’t within her capabilities, though.
“I’d rather get back before the sun comes up,” he offers.
“We could stay out,” she tells him.
“No. That we can’t do, and you know it.”
“Don’t care. Just give em a reason to get rid of me sooner.”
He hates it when she’s honest like this. He leaves for basic in a month. She’s made more than clear that she’s not planning to stay any kind of safe once he does. Not that she’s very safe with him there. Case in point, the order to put her down as they pass a park near the group home.
“You’ll fall on your face,” he tells her.
“Need to barf,” she explains as she totters off to a picnic table. She braces one hand on the edge of the thing and leans over far enough to avoid her shoes before jamming her fingers into her mouth.
James has long thought this to be one of the most unsettling things about his little sister. It’s not an eating disorder, or so she likes to remind him. It’s hangover prevention. He pretends not to notice when she takes off for the bathroom after meals.
She’s finished quickly, wipes her hand in the grass and spits a couple times before coming back to him.
“M’good now.”
“Yeah, that’s what you are.”
“Fuck you, Jamie.”
He grabs for her without thinking. She’s losing her balance, and he’s sure she’s going to fall. He knows it’s mistake the second his hands wrap around her ribcage, though. Her eyes go saucer wide, shocky, and she goes ramrod stiff. A knee is up and headed toward his junk faster than he can react, and she takes off at an impressive clip for a person as utterly fucked up as she is. Though maybe the expulsion of tonight’s indulgences worked on more levels than a purely gastric one.
Still, she doesn’t get far. Panicked flight while drunk off her ass means running through a park in the dark ends in an impressive fall over the border of the playground. It’s obvious the fall knocks the wind out of her, and she curls into a fetal ball before he can reach her. James has seen her do this before. Knows she’ll swing again if he startles her. So he kneels a few feet away, hands up and facing front.
“Hey, Tash, it’s Jamie,” he coaxes.
“Fuck off,” she spits out.
“Can’t do that, Tash. Gotta get you home.”
“I don’t have a home.”
“Gotta get you to bed?” he tries.
“You don’t swing that way.”
James thanks every god he can think of that her crash landing in the mulch seems to have knocked her back to the here and now. “No. That I don’t. Get you up anyway?”
“M’sorry,” she murmurs after nodding her assent.
He hauls her to her feet, wraps an arm around her to keep her steady, and they resume the slow trek back to the place they bide their time. Waiting for what, he’s yet to really decide. For right now though, his world is the tiny redhead at his side, her soft breath and the curls that always smell vaguely of mint conditioner. He’s leaving soon, and they both know that’s where their paths separate permanently.