Chapter Text
It was a pitiful affair...to bury one Jackie Taylor.
There was no pomp, there were no prayers(or some, if whatever Lottie was blabbering could be considered as that) and no words(it was quiet, quiet as the snow that had killed her).
Everybody seemed to have forgotten their voices, or maybe they couldn't be bothered to be reminded once again they'd soon all be dead and buried and as frozen as Jackie was in the ground.
The threat of starvation almost forgotten to the idea of silent killers, like freezing to death and lonely, being on the table.
In the years to come, Taissa would laugh at the ridiculous representation of puppets, heplessly gathered around the burial of their queen, whom they had believed invincible, spiralling into a winding road from which there was no return; she'd laugh at the little shows of mourning, of pathetic sorrow that people couldn't be bothered to display while Jackie was still alive and falling apart. She'd laugh at herself and her own inaction at saving her, her propention at letting it happen, to stop the events from being set into motion; to the attitude made of stone which had kept her in the attic that night, with Shauna, falling asleep right beside her, rather than tearing that fuckin door open and dragging Jackie and her pride back inside, so that everything could be fixed and no one would feel like there was a constant elephant in the room permeating every...fuckin...conversation.
She'd laugh, mostly, at why the fuck she was laughing; instead of crying, sobs pulling her chest apart, blabbering about her terrible past, begging for her wife to solve things and feelings she knew nothing about, for a Taissa she hadn't met and was still an absolute mystery to her.
In that moment, tho, firmly standing vigil right on top of the hole that would hold one Jackie Taylor for the rest of eternity, all she could do was let those tears and that sorrow turn to laughters, quietly laughing at Shauna's face and behavior and loss; crouching over Jackie's grave, as if with one swift movement she could've digged the other girl out of there...hand rising her up, as they had done countless times during soccer practice or matches. A familiar gesture, executed a thousand times, often easily lost between bigger ones.
Shauna's breaths were coming in shorts, constantly interrupted by sobs, tears piling up at an alarming rate and streaming down her cheeks like she had never ever cried before that day, and they were ruining her twisted features, her heart looking ready to explode in her chest, or whatever was left of it after Jackie had shattered it by dying.
Her eyes were red and swollen, and she looked as if somebody had sucked the life out of there and all that was left was a shadow, that went around with the name of Shauna Shipman but was nothing like her.
All that was left was a horror movie for paying entertained costumers, nevermind, their teammates.
All that was left was a grief as big as that of a bride, and not that of a coward who had never been able to call out loudly her real feelings before it was too late.
The type of grief everybody else would be forced to stand with and turn into their business; the annoying pits of grief that Taissa had willingly spent a long time avoiding ever since she had been a child.
Shauna's growin bump was awkwardly leaning on the ground with her.
Too little, too late?
And Taissa laughed and laughed, because Jackie Taylor had had the nerve to die on them, when everybody and she herself had always thought she'd never have the courage to do so. Or to do anything that could be considered brave at all.
Fuck Jackie Taylor.
With her perfect composure, and her perfect smile and her perfect everything, which had fallen apart like a fragile pile of cards.
It had started quietly, like a snickering child in trouble but not quite yet.
Then it had become wild and unkept , until everybody could hear it above the very sad procession, and the silence of the woods; until it had reached the ears of the mourning party, especially Shauna... still gripping the cold grass and tearing it apart in her pale hands; while Taissa bent on her knees trying to stop...and failing miserably to do so.
She'd look at their shocked face and burst back into it; as if they had spelled out a great joke everybody liked.
Taissa watched from her high as Shauna unsteadily stood up and closed the gap her way.
Her face was finally displayin something different from the grief of the last three days. Taissa would be happy with anything, even anger, especially anger.
She felt cornered, despite the fact they were in the full open. A feral animal wa staring back at her, waiting for her to stand down and give up the fight or to be a rival and tear her up just as much and as well.
It was devastatingly beautiful. Anger she knew, anger she could deal and work with.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" gasped out the other girl, her breaths being short and labored.
Taissa smiled and Shauna gripped her by the scruff of the neck, her hands gripping it tightly, as tightly as they could; almost ripping it off its normal place.
"I'm quite alright, thanks, you don't seem to feel so good yourself tho, Shauna".
"Jackie is dead" and she said it as if it were surprising, as if they had just found out, instead of having been at the centre of a death storm for the past three days.
"I'm not the one who put her down there, Shauna"
Taissa spotted the regret and devastation before they could even reach Shauna's face; so good she knew her inner movings at that point.
"I didn't..."
"Yes, you did. You left her out there, you knew she didn't know how to stand a chance out there...how to make a fire...you knew those things"
"I thought..."
"You thought, what? She'd come back in? Budge when she never, ever, gave up a fight? You knew more than anyone else that Jackie couldn't do those things"
"Don't do this..." and there were doe eyes following that statement.
"Do, what?Tell the truth? You don't like that, do you, Shipman?"
"She didn't...she didn't kill herself" It was hearing her last name, something Jackie had used many times for her, being called out by someone else with the same meaningful porpuse it had had in the blonde's lips and Shauna's voice dipped almost into nothingness, silence, as if that way, it could've gotten rid of the nagging doubt, that that was exactly what it had come to; how it had happened, how Jackie had chosen to go out. CHOSEN. That she had been complicit in something as devastating as that. That she had been the reason why Jackie wanted to die and not the reason to fight and survive, instead.
It brought Shauna to her knees.
She kept on grabbing onto Taissa, to steady herself, but inside one could see the fight that was brewing, the war that was raging, it had settled there in her chest with her sorrow, as clear as a bell.
Taissa had watched Shauna scream herself hoarse and bloody when they had found Jackie, but she found the sounds Shauna couldn't voice were the most haunting.
They were all in those eyes looking back at her, trying to gauge if she was the enemy or the shoulder to lean on.
It was as terrifying as it was exciting and not for the first time Taissa wondered if Jackie had felt a surge of pride , of selfish autoreferencial arrogance to the idea she had held all the power she could've possibly held over Shauna.
To know that she had bound Shauna to her for life...and for death...and whatever was in between that had to be.
Taissa had never wanted more than in that moment to know what Jackie Taylor had felt like.
To stand in the same spot where she had stood. To be able to talk to the other girl the way she had.
She had taken her spot in the cot beside Shauna already, and way before her body was cold and unfeeling.
It was the most dishuman thing Taissa had ever thought until that moment, to steal from a dead girl her most prized belonging.
A belonging that had a name, and a mind and a soul, which Jackie Taylor had broken forever.
Empty as they were, those eyes were fascinating.
She admired Jackie for having the power to take the light out of them. How well she had crafted rooting herself inside all of Shauna, consuming her whole, till there would be nothing but a dead girl walking. As dead as the one they had just buried in the ground.
Taissa almost mulled over trying to be the one who would bring the light back to them, but none of the thoughts she had just thought were holy words of glory. Shauna wanted nothing more of that.
She wanted to fade away, like pages in an old book, taking dust on as old shelves and Taissa would oblige, diving right behind her. Like everything in their newly found bond.
It was fly or crash.
Whole or not she'd have her.
So Jackie had had a lifetime of Shauna's love, and Taissa would've a lifetime of her heartbreak, hers and the one she knew she was gonna cause to another.
What a pitiful affair indeed it was, to bury one Jackie Taylor.
To bury her dreams, her desires, and her heart. To bury the woman she could've been, and the girl she had wanted so badly to be; and the meek weak tragedy she had become.
To bury her with the three most prized words she'd never hear from the one person who had always meant them and for just for her.
What a pitiful affair Shauna Shipman should be buried with her, a corpse breathing just for the sake of it. Never to be whole again. Never to feel the same ever again.
What a pity Taissa should willingly follow right after.